Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Awarded for	Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Location	England
Presented by	Society of London Theatre
First awarded	1977
Currently held by	Will Close for Dear England (2024)
Website	officiallondontheatre.com/olivier-awards/

The Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role is an annual award presented by the Society of London Theatre in recognition of achievements in commercial London theatre. The Oliviers were established as the Society of West End Theatre Awards in 1976, and renamed in 1984 in honour of English actor and director Laurence Olivier.

This award was first given in 1977, then was replaced in 1985 by the commingled actor/actress Best Performance in a Supporting Role, which replaced the 1977 to 1984 pair of Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role awards. From 1991 to 2012, the general supporting category vacillated at random between the commingled singular award (presented for 12 different seasons) and the pair of awards (presented for the other 11 seasons); the commingled award was last given in 2012, and the split pair of Best Actor and Best Actress awards have been presented every year since.

Winners and nominees

1970s

Year	Actor	Play	Character
1977
	Nigel Hawthorne	Privates on Parade	Major Giles Flack
	Michael Pennington	Romeo and Juliet	Mercutio
	Paul Rogers	The Madras House	Henry Huxtable
	Patrick Ryecart	Candida	Eugene Marchbanks
1978
	Robert Eddison	Twelfth Night	Andrew Aguecheek / Feste
	Michael Bryant	The Double Dealer	Sir Paul Plyant
	Julian Glover	Coriolanus	Aufidius
	Robert Stephens	Brand	Mayor
1979
	Patrick Stewart	Antony and Cleopatra	Enobarbus
	Michael Bryant	Undiscovered Country	Dr. von Aigner
	Stephen Greif	Death of a Salesman	Biff
	David Suchet	Once in a Lifetime	Herman Glogauer

1980s

Year	Actor	Play	Character
1980
	David Threlfall	Nicholas Nickleby	Angry Gentleman / Smike
	Simon Callow	Amadeus	Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
	Edward Petherbridge	Nicholas Nickleby	Newman Noggs
	John Rogan	Juno and the Paycock	Joxer Daly
1981
	Joe Melia	Good	Maurice
	Tony Church	Hamlet	Polonius
	Norman Rodway	Shadow of a Gunman	Seuman Shields
	Tom Wilkinson	Hamlet	Horatio
1982
	David Healy	Guys and Dolls	Nicely Nicely Johnson
	Geoffrey Hutchings	A Midsummer Night's Dream	Bottom
	Stephen Moore	All's Well That Ends Well	Parolles
	Paul Rogers	The Importance of Being Earnest	Rev. Canon Chasuble
1983
	Alan Devlin	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Phil Hogan
	Ian McDiarmid	Tales from Hollywood	Bertolt Brecht
	Mark Rylance	Arden of Faversham	Michael
	Antony Sher	King Lear	Fool
1984
	Edward Petherbridge	Strange Interlude	Charles Marsden
	Ramolao Makhene	"Master Harold"...and the Boys	Sam
	Richard O'Callaghan	Twelfth Night	Feste
	Timothy Spall	Saint Joan	Charles, the Dauphin

1990s

Year	Actor	Play	Character
1991
	David Bradley	King Lear	The Fool
	Ben Daniels	Never the Sinner	Richard Loeb
	Mick Ford	Singer	Stefan
	Jonathan Kent	The Rehearsal	Hero
1992
	Oleg Menshikov	When She Danced	Sergei Yesenin
	Simon Russell Beale	Troilus and Cressida	Thersites
	Henry Goodman	Angels in America	Roy Cohn / Prior 2
	Ken Stott	The Recruiting Officer	Sergeant Kite
1993
	Julian Glover	Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2	Henry IV of England
	Robin Bailey	Trelawny of the Wells	Sir William Gower
	David Bradley	Henry IV, Part 2	Justice Shallow
	Martin Shaw	An Ideal Husband	Lord Goring
1994
	Joseph Mydell	Angels in America: Perestroika	Belize
	Richard McCabe	The Winter's Tale	Autolycus
	Rufus Sewell	Arcadia	Septimus Hodge
1995
	Ken Stott	Broken Glass	Dr. Harry Hyman
	Simon Russell Beale	The Tempest	Ariel
	Simon Coates	As You Like It	Celia
	Trevor Peacock	The Birthday Party	Petey
1997
	Trevor Eve	Uncle Vanya	Astrov
	Stephen Boxer	The Herbal Bed	Barnabus Goche
	Tony Haygarth	Twelve Angry Men	Juror 3
	Owen Teale	A Doll's House	Torvald Helmer

2000s

Year	Actor	Play	Character
2000
	Roger Allam	Money	Henry Graves
	Michael Bryant	Summerfolk	Semyon Dvoetochie
	Ron Cook	Juno and the Paycock	Joxer Daly
	Michael Williams	The Forest	Arkadiy Schastlivtsev
2001
	Ben Daniels	All My Sons	Chris Keller
	Chiwetel Ejiofor	Blue/Orange	Christopher
	Douglas Hodge	The Caretaker	Aston
	Jason Watkins	A Servant to Two Masters	Truffaldino
2002
	Toby Jones	The Play What I Wrote	Arthur
	Desmond Barrit	Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2	Sir John Falstaff
	Ned Beatty	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Big Daddy
	Adam Godley	Mouth to Mouth	Gompertz
	Malcolm Sinclair	Privates on Parade	Major Giles Flack

2010s

Year	Actor	Play	Character
2010
	Eddie Redmayne	Red	Ken
	Mackenzie Crook	Jerusalem	Ginger
	Rory Kinnear	Burnt by the Sun	Mitya
	Tim Pigott-Smith	ENRON	Ken Lay
2011
	Adrian Scarborough	After the Dance	John Reid
	James Laurenson	Hamlet	Ghost / The Player King
	Hilton McRae	End of the Rainbow	Anthony
	Lee Ross	Birdsong	Jack Firebrace
2013
	Richard McCabe	The Audience	Harold Wilson
	Paul Chahidi	Twelfth Night	Maria
	Adrian Scarborough	Hedda Gabler	Jurgen Tesman
	Kyle Soller	Long Day's Journey into Night	Edmund
2014
	Jack Lowden	Ghosts	Oswald
	Ron Cook	Henry V	Pistol
	Mark Gatiss	Coriolanus	Menenius
	Ardal O'Hanlon	The Weir	Jim
2015
	Nathaniel Parker	Wolf Hall / Bring Up the Bodies	Henry VIII
	David Calder	The Nether	Doyle
	Richard Goulding	King Charles III	Prince Harry
	John Light	Taken at Midnight	Dr Conrad
2016
	Mark Gatiss	Three Days in the Country	Shpigelsky
	Michael Pennington	The Winter's Tale	Antigonus
	Tom Sturridge	American Buffalo	Bobby
	David Suchet	The Importance of Being Earnest	Lady Bracknell
2017
	Anthony Boyle	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child	Scorpius Malfoy
	Freddie Fox	Travesties	Tristan Tzara
	Brian J. Smith	The Glass Menagerie	Jim O'Connor
	Rafe Spall	Hedda Gabler	Judge Brack
2018
	Bertie Carvel	Ink	Rupert Murdoch
	John Hodgkinson	The Ferryman	Tom Kettle
	James McArdle	Angels in America	Louis Ironson
	Peter Polycarpou	Oslo	Ahmed Qurei
2019
	Chris Walley	The Lieutenant of Inishmore	Davey
	Keir Charles	Quiz	Various
	Adam Gillen	Killer Joe	Chris Smith
	Adrian Lukis	The Price	Walter Franz
	Malcolm Sinclair	Pressure	Dwight D. Eisenhower

2020s

Year	Actor	Play	Character
2020
	Adrian Scarborough	Leopoldstadt	Hermann Merz
	Arinzé Kene	Death of a Salesman	Biff Loman
	Colin Morgan	All My Sons	Chris Keller
	Reece Shearsmith	A Very Expensive Poison	The President / Jon
2021	Not presented due to extended closing of theatre productions during COVID-19 pandemic [A]
2022 [A]
	Fred Davis, Daisy Franks, Romina Hytten, Tom Larkin, Habib Nasib Nader, Tom Stacy and Scarlet Wilderink	Life of Pi	Tiger
	Dino Fetscher	The Normal Heart	Felix Turner
	Nathaniel Parker	The Mirror and the Light	Henry VIII
	Danny Lee Wynter	The Normal Heart	Tommy Boatwright
2023
	Will Keen	Patriots	Vladimir Putin
	Mark Akintimehin, Emmanuel Akwafo, Nnabiko Ejimofor, Darragh Hand, Aruna Jalloh and Kaine Lawrence	For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy	Onyx, Pitch, Jet, Sable, Obsidian, Midnight
	Elliot Levey	Good	Maurice
	David Moorst	To Kill a Mockingbird	Dill Harris
	Sule Rimi	Blues for an Alabama Sky	Sam Thomas
2024
	Will Close	Dear England	Harry Kane
	Paul Hilton	An Enemy of the People	Peter Stockmann
	Giles Terera	Clyde's	Montrellous
	Luke Thompson	A Little Life	Willem
	Zubin Varla		Harold

1. Due to late March 2020 ^[1] to late July 2021 ^[2] closing of London theatre productions during the COVID-19 pandemic in England, the 2022 awards recognise productions that launched anytime from February 2020 to February 2022 ^[3]

See also

• Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play
• Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play

References

1. Johnson, The Rt Hon Boris, MP (2020-03-23). Prime Minister's statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 23 March 2020 [transcript] (Speech). Prime Minister's Televised Speech to the United Kingdom. www.gov.uk. London, UK. Archived from the original on 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2022-04-25. From this evening I must give the British people a very simple instruction — you must stay at home.
2. McPhee, Ryan (2021-06-14). "U.K. Postpones Reopening Roadmap; West End Theatres Will No Longer Reopen in Full in June". Playbill . Archived from the original on 2021-06-14. Retrieved 2022-04-25. Step 4 of the roadmap will allow productions to play without capacity restrictions. June 21 was the goal; now, the government is eyeing July 19.
3. Thomas, Sophie (2022-03-08). "Everything you need to know about the Olivier Awards". londontheatre.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2022-04-11. Retrieved 2022-04-25. Any new production that opened between 19 Feb. 2020 to 22 Feb. 2022 are eligible for categories in the 2022 Olivier Awards. With two years worth of shows set for honours in one year's ceremony, the 2022 Olivier Awards will prove tougher competition than before.

• London Theatre Guide (2008). "The Laurence Olivier Awards: Full List of Winners, 1976-2008" (.PDF). 1976-2008. The Society of London Theatre. p. 20. Retrieved 2008-08-30.

External links

• Official website