Jack Lowden | |
---|---|
Born | Jack Andrew Lowden 2 June 1990 Chelmsford, Essex, England |
Education | Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (BA) |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 2010–present |
Spouse |
Jack Andrew Lowden (born 2 June 1990) is a Scottish actor. Following a four-year stage career, his first major international onscreen success was in the 2016 BBC miniseries War & Peace , which led to starring roles in feature films.
Lowden starred as Eric Liddell in the 2012 play Chariots of Fire in London. In 2014, he won an Olivier Award and the Ian Charleson Award for his role as Oswald in Richard Eyre's 2013 adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts . In 2013, he began to have substantial roles in British television series and feature films, including The Tunnel (2013) and '71 (2014), and had leading roles in the BBC miniseries The Passing Bells (2014) and War & Peace (2016).
His screen projects since War & Peace have included the title role as golfing legend Tommy Morris in Tommy's Honour (2016), the starring role of Morrissey in the biopic England Is Mine (2017), a main-cast role as an RAF fighter-pilot in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017), a starring role in the Scottish Highlands thriller Calibre (2018, for which he won the British Academy Scotland Award for Best Film Actor), Lord Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots (2018), a starring role as a plantation owner in 19th-century Jamaica in the 2018 BBC miniseries The Long Song , as Zak "Zodiac" Bevis in the 2019 comedy-drama WWE film Fighting with My Family , and the 2022 Apple TV series Slow Horses , for which he received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Lowden was born on 2 June 1990 in Chelmsford, Essex, [1] the son of Gordon and Jacquie Lowden. [2] [3] He grew up in the Scottish village of Oxton. [3] [4] In a 2019 interview, he explained: "I'm an IVF baby. And so is my brother. Down there [England] was one of the few places that was doing it." [3] His younger brother, Calum, became a ballet dancer from a very early age at the Manor School of Ballet in Edinburgh, [5] [6] and later trained at the English National Ballet School and the Royal Ballet School in London; as of 2016, he is a first soloist at the Royal Swedish Ballet. [7] [8] As a child, Lowden attended the dance classes at Manor School of Ballet as well, but found he was better at, and more suited to, acting. [5] [6] [9] [10] He has stated that his personal ambition since childhood was to be a footballer. [3]
When he was 10 Lowden's parents enrolled him in the Scottish Youth Theatre in Edinburgh. [11] At age 12 he played John in a Peter Pan pantomime at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh. [11] He attended Earlston High School, where he starred as Buddy Holly in Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story and performed in various concerts. [12] [13] [14] His determination to become a professional actor came from seeing the play Black Watch on its first run in 2007. [15] [16] While in high school, he studied during summer school at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. [13] He also performed regularly at the Galashiels Amateur Operatic Society, where he played the lead in a 2008 production of The Boy Friend . [17] [13] Lowden received a BA in acting from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow in 2011. [13] [18] [19]
In 2009, at the age of 18, Lowden starred in a television advertisement for Irn-Bru, sending up High School Musical . [20] In 2010 he had a small part as the character Nick Fairclough on an episode of the Glasgow-set television series Being Victor . [21] [22]
In 2010–11 Lowden was the lead character, Cammy, in the National Theatre of Scotland's revival production of the Olivier Award-winning play Black Watch . The play is an incisive and topical look at the harsh reality of war, and depicts soldiers of the legendary historic Scottish Black Watch regiment serving in Iraq. [4] He and the rest of the cast underwent gruelling physical training during the rehearsals period to get into military shape. [15]
The Black Watch production toured to London (Barbican), Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Belfast, and in the U.S. to New York City, Washington, Chicago, Austin, and Chapel Hill. [4] [23] UK reviewers deemed Lowden "a clearly hugely promising young actor" [24] "who carries off this amazing start to his career with assurance and maturity". [25] In the U.S., The Washington Post described him as "quietly charismatic" and a "stand-out"; [26] this was echoed by the Chicago Sun-Times , which called him "easily charismatic"; [27] and the Chicago Tribune noted his "rich and finely detailed work". [28]
From 9 May 2012 to 5 January 2013 Lowden starred as Scottish runner and missionary Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire , the stage adaptation of the film of the same name. [29] The Olympic-themed play, created and produced specifically in honour of the 2012 London Summer Olympics, opened at London's Hampstead Theatre and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End in June 2012. [30] [31] Lowden's performance was widely praised, including by Libby Purves in The Times . [32] [33]
Onscreen, in 2012 he appeared in the ITV drama Mrs Biggs as Alan Wright, who has an affair with Charmian Biggs and gets her pregnant. In 2013, he played the pivotal role of the lead character's son, Adam, in the television series The Tunnel . [34] The series is a British/French crime-drama co-production, and aired in the UK and in France; in the summer of 2016 it aired on PBS in the U.S. He also had a sizable role as a young British soldier in the 2014 film '71 , which takes place in Belfast in 1971 during the Northern Ireland conflict. [35]
In 2014, Lowden received both the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and also the Ian Charleson Award, for his role as Oswald in Richard Eyre's adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts . [36] [37] [38] The production ran from September 2013 to March 2014, opening at the Almeida Theatre and then transferring in December to the West End at Trafalgar Studios. A filmed February 2014 performance of the production screened in more than 275 UK and Irish cinemas on 26 June 2014. [39] [40] [41] The entire filmed performance is viewable online. [41] [42]
In June 2014 Screen Daily named Lowden one of the UK Stars of Tomorrow. [34] [43]
He performed Orestes in Electra at the Old Vic in the autumn of 2014. The production starred Kristin Scott Thomas as his sister Electra, and Diana Quick played their mother Clytemnestra. Previews began 22 September, the official opening was 1 October, and the run continued in a limited engagement through to 20 December 2014. [44] [45]
On television he starred as one of the two leads in the 2014 World War I BBC drama series The Passing Bells . It is the story of two youths, one from Germany and one from the UK, who enlist as soldiers at the beginning of the war. [46] [47]
Lowden portrayed Nikolai Rostov, one of the main characters, in the 2016 BBC miniseries War & Peace . [7] [48] The 6-part miniseries, which was broadcast around the world and positively reviewed, [49] [50] garnered Lowden the most exposure he had had thus far in his career. [7] [51]
In film he played the title role in Tommy's Honour (2016), about legendary Scottish golfing champion Old Tom Morris, played by Peter Mullan, and his complex and bittersweet relationship with his son Tom "Tommy" Morris, Jr.; Lowden was nominated for Best Film Actor at the 2016 BAFTA Scotland Awards for his performance. [52] [53] [54] He also portrayed British politician Tony Benn in a supporting role in A United Kingdom , a 2016 film about Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams Khama. In another supporting role, he was one of star Rachel Weisz's character's attorneys in Denial (2016), a fact-based legal-drama film about Holocaust denial which also starred Andrew Scott. [55]
In April 2016 he was a finalist in the entertainment category at the 11th Young Scot Awards. [56] In November 2016, the UK arts and entertainment magazine The List featured Lowden as one of The Hot 100 2016. [57]
He played a Royal Air Force fighter pilot, one of the leading roles, in Christopher Nolan's World War II film Dunkirk , released in July 2017. [58] [59] [60] And he portrayed Morrissey in a biopic of the singer titled England Is Mine , written and directed by Mark Gill; [61] the film, which co-stars Jessica Brown Findlay, premiered at the closing gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 2 July 2017 and went into wide release in August 2017. [62]
He co-starred with Martin McCann in a Scottish thriller, Calibre (2018), which began filming in November 2016, debuted at the 2018 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and was released globally on Netflix on 29 June 2018. [63] [64] [65] Guy Lodge in Variety wrote of his performance, "[A] lead performance of through-the-wringer commitment by rising Scots star Jack Lowden. ... An Olivier Award-winning stage actor now settling into a quietly potent, empathetic screen presence, Lowden impressively holds it together through all these key changes, even when his character emphatically does not." [66] Lowden won the 2018 British Academy Scotland Award for Best Film Actor for the performance. [67]
On stage, from 28 September to 24 November 2018 Lowden starred opposite Hayley Atwell in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure , at the Donmar Warehouse in London, directed by Josie Rourke. It was a unique gender-reversal production of the work, and he and Atwell alternated the roles of Angelo and Isabella during the play. [68] [69] [70] On television, in December 2018 he co-starred with Tamara Lawrance and Hayley Atwell, in a three-part BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy's novel The Long Song , about a slave on a sugar plantation in 19th-century Jamaica; the piece was filmed on location in the Dominican Republic. [10] [71]
He portrayed Lord Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots (2018), opposite Saoirse Ronan and directed by theatre director Josie Rourke, [72] and Zak "Zodiac" Bevis in the 2019 comedy-drama WWE film Fighting with My Family , opposite Florence Pugh and directed by Steve Merchant. He appeared as FBI agent Crawford in the Al Capone biopic Capone (2020), starring his Dunkirk co-star Tom Hardy. [73]
In February 2019 Lowden teamed up with Beta Cinema to form his own production company, Reiver Pictures, based in Edinburgh. [74] This led to the production of a psychological thriller, Kindred , in which Lowden also starred alongside Tamara Lawrance and Fiona Shaw. [74] He portrayed Siegfried Sassoon in the 2022 biopic Benediction .
Lowden was announced to star in the Apple TV series Slow Horses in December 2020. [75] He reprised his role for seasons two, three and four and is set to appear in season five. [76] [77] He is nominated at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards as Outstanding Supporting Actor in A Drama Series. [78]
He joined Duncan Jones' upcoming film Rogue Trooper. [79]
From 2019 to 2021 Lowden resided in Leith, Edinburgh, before moving back to the Scottish Borders in May 2021. [80] [3] [81] He supports Scottish independence. [82] [83]
Since 2018 he has been in a relationship with Irish actress Saoirse Ronan, his co-star in Mary Queen of Scots. [84] An Instagram post in July 2023 sparked speculation that they are engaged. [85] The Irish Independent reported in July 2024 that they married in Edinburgh. [86]
† | Denotes projects that have not yet been released |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2014 | '71 | Thompson | |
Ghosts | Oswald | Filmed performance of West End play | |
2016 | Tommy's Honour | Tom Morris, Jr. | |
A United Kingdom | Tony Benn | ||
Denial | James Libson | ||
2017 | Dunkirk | Collins | |
England Is Mine | Morrissey | ||
2018 | Calibre | Vaughn | |
Mary Queen of Scots | Lord Darnley | ||
2019 | Fighting with My Family | Zak Bevis | |
2020 | Capone | Crawford | |
Kindred | Thomas | Also co-producer | |
2021 | Benediction | Siegfried Sassoon | |
2025 | Rogue Trooper † | Gunner | Post-production |
Ella McCay † | TBA | Post-production | |
TBA | Tornado † | Little Sugar | Post-production |
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Being Victor | Nick Fairclough | Episode: #1.3 |
2012 | Mrs Biggs | Alan Wright | 2 episodes |
2013 | The Tunnel | Adam Roebuck | Recurring (10 episodes) |
2014 | The Passing Bells | Michael | Miniseries |
2015 | Wolf Hall | Thomas Wyatt | Miniseries |
2016 | War & Peace | Nikolai Rostov | Miniseries |
2018 | The Long Song | Robert Goodwin | 3-part TV film |
2020 | Small Axe | Ian Macdonald | Mini-series; episode: Mangrove |
2022–present | Slow Horses | River Cartwright | TV series |
2023 | The Gold | Kenneth Noye | Drama about the £26 million gold bullion Brink's-Mat robbery |
2024 | The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power | Forodwaith Sauron | Episode: "Elven Kings Under the Sky" |
Year | Title | Role | Director | Playwright | Theatre |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010–11 | Black Watch | Cammy | John Tiffany | Gregory Burke | National Theatre of Scotland touring UK/U.S. |
2012 | Chariots of Fire | Eric Liddell | Edward Hall | Mike Bartlett Colin Welland | Hampstead Theatre Gielgud Theatre |
2013–14 | Ghosts | Oswald | Richard Eyre | Henrik Ibsen | Almeida Theatre Trafalgar Studios |
2014 | Electra | Orestes | Ian Rickson | Sophocles | Old Vic |
2018 | Measure for Measure | Angelo Isabella | Josie Rourke | Shakespeare | Donmar Warehouse |
2024 | The Fifth Step | Luka | Finn Den Hertog | David Ireland | National Theatre of Scotland |
Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | Ian Charleson Awards | Ghosts | Won | |
2014 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Won | |
2016 | Young Scot Awards | Entertainment | War & Peace | Nominated |
2016 | British Academy Scotland Awards | Best Actor in Film | Tommy's Honour | Nominated |
2018 | Calibre | Won | ||
2019 | British Academy Scotland Awards | Best Actor in Film | Mary Queen of Scots | Nominated |
2020 | British Academy Film Awards | Rising Star Award | Himself | Nominated |
2021 | British Academy Scotland Awards | Best Actor in Television | Small Axe: Mangrove | Nominated |
2022 | British Academy Scotland Awards | Best Actor in Film | Benediction | Won |
2023 | British Academy Television Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Slow Horses | Nominated |
2024 | Nominated | |||
2024 | Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series | Nominated | |
2025 | Golden Globe Awards | Best Supporting Actor – Television | Pending |
Brian Denis Cox is a Scottish actor. A classically trained Shakespearean actor, he is known for his work on stage and screen. His numerous accolades include two Laurence Olivier Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award as well as a nomination for a British Academy Television Award. In 2003, he was appointed to the Order of the British Empire at the rank of Commander.
Jason Joseph Connery is an Italian-born British actor and director. He is the son of Sean Connery and Diane Cilento. On screen, he is best known for appearing in the third series of the ITV drama series Robin of Sherwood in 1986. He took over the main role after Michael Praed's character was killed off at the end of the second series.
David Paisley is a Scottish actor, domestic violence and LGBTQIA+ rights campaigner, known for roles as midwife Ben Saunders in Holby City, Ryan Taylor in Tinsel Town and Rory Murdoch in River City. Some of his characters have been controversial due to their sexual orientation.
Sir David Mark Rylance Waters is an English actor, playwright and theatre director. He is known for his roles on stage and screen, having received numerous awards including an Academy Award, three BAFTA Awards, two Olivier Awards and three Tony Awards. In 2016 he was included in the Time 100 list of the world's most influential people. In 2017 he was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth II.
Hayley Elizabeth Atwell is a British and American actress. After appearing in various West End productions, Atwell gained popularity for her roles in period dramas, appearing in the films Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Duchess (2008) and the miniseries The Pillars of the Earth (2010); for the latter two, she was nominated for a British Independent Film Award and a Golden Globe Award respectively.
Andy Gray was a Scottish actor and writer from Perth.
Shauna Macdonald is a Scottish actress. She began her career starring in The Debt Collector (1999). She then had her breakthrough starring as Sam Buxton in the television series Spooks (2003–2004). After departing the series, she starred as Sarah Carter in the horror film The Descent (2005), the role for which she is best known. She gained widespread recognition and praise for her performance, and was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Actress. The film established Macdonald as a scream queen. She reprised her role in its sequel The Descent Part 2 (2009).
Saoirse Una Ronan is an American-born Irish actress. Primarily known for her work in period dramas since adolescence, she has received various accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for four Academy Awards and five British Academy Film Awards.
Sam Roland Heughan is a Scottish actor, producer, author, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his starring role as Jamie Fraser in the Starz drama series Outlander (2014–present) for which he has won the People's Choice Award for Favorite Cable Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actor and the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television, and received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series.
Scotland has produced many films, directors and actors.
Domhnall Gleeson is an Irish actor and screenwriter. He is the son of actor Brendan Gleeson, with whom he has appeared in a number of films and theatre projects. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Media Arts from Dublin Institute of Technology.
James John McArdle is a Scottish actor. He won the Ian Charleson Award for his role as Mikhail Platonov in Platonov and was nominated for an Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for portraying Louis Ironson in Angels in America.
Richard Rankin is a Scottish film, television and theatre actor. He is best known for the Scottish sketch show Burnistoun, for playing Roger Wakefield MacKenzie in the Starz drama Outlander and for playing the lead role in the 2024 TV series Rebus, adapted from the Inspector Rebus novels by Ian Rankin.
Scott James Kyle, is a Scottish actor, best known for his roles as Ross in Outlander, Clancy in The Angels' Share, and Corporal Stu Pearson in the film Kajaki: The True Story. Kyle received the 2010 Stage Awards Best Actor Award for his role in the play Singin' I'm No A Billy He's A Tim.
Chloe Pirrie is a Scottish actress. She has played main roles in the 2014 miniseries The Game, the 2012 film Shell, and the 2015 television film An Inspector Calls, in which she played Sheila Birling. She has also appeared in the 2016 miniseries War & Peace, the 2015 film Youth, the 2015 film Blood Cells and "The Waldo Moment", a 2013 episode of Black Mirror. In 2015, she also co-starred in the Academy Award winner for Best Live Action Short Film Stutterer.
Tommy's Honour is a 2016 historical drama film depicting the lives and careers of, and the complex relationship between, the pioneering Scottish golfing champions Old Tom Morris and his son Young Tom Morris. The film is directed by Jason Connery, and the father and son are portrayed by Peter Mullan and Jack Lowden. The film won Best Feature Film at the 2016 British Academy Scotland Awards.
Mary Queen of Scots is a 2018 historical drama film directed by Josie Rourke and with a screenplay by Beau Willimon based on John Guy's 2004 biography Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart. The film stars Saoirse Ronan as Mary, Queen of Scots, and Margot Robbie as her paternal first cousin once removed Queen Elizabeth I. Jack Lowden, Joe Alwyn, David Tennant, and Guy Pearce also star in supporting roles.
Fionn Whitehead is an English actor. He portrayed the lead role in the 2017 film Dunkirk and the 2018 film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. His first acting credit was in the 2016 ITV miniseries Him.
Luke Thompson is an English actor. For his theatre work, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award. On television, he is known for his role as Benedict, the second Bridgerton child, in the Netflix period drama Bridgerton (2020–). He also appeared in the BBC One drama In the Club (2014–2016).
The Outrun is a 2024 drama film directed by Nora Fingscheidt from a screenplay she co-wrote with Amy Liptrot, and a story the two co-wrote with Daisy Lewis, based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by Liptrot. A co-production between the United Kingdom and Germany, it stars Saoirse Ronan, who also serves as a producer, along with Paapa Essiedu, Nabil Elouahabi, Izuka Hoyle, Lauren Lyle, Saskia Reeves, and Stephen Dillane in supporting roles.
Having now achieved the level of fame where public transport is a no-go, she opts to live as quietly as possible between Dublin, London, and the north of England, with her long-term boyfriend Jack Lowden, another Scottish actor.