Ben Miles

Ben Miles, born Benjamin Charles Miles in Wimbledon, London, is an English actor who trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama after growing up in Ashover, Derbyshire, where he attended Tupton Hall School. He has worked extensively across stage, television, and film, with a Broadway career spanning 2009 to 2021.

Miles built his early television career in the 1990s through supporting appearances in series including Zorro, Soldier Soldier, Is It Legal?, The Bill, Peak Practice, and Wonderful You. His film work during that period included a small role as a journalist in the 1997 motion picture The Wings of the Dove, followed by a leading role in The Round Tower later that same year. In 1999 he was cast as Richard Martin in Reach For The Moon, and in 2000 he took on the role of Robert Brown in Cold Feet. That same year he was cast as the womanizing Patrick Maitland in the comedy series Coupling, a role he held until the show concluded in 2004. Concurrent with Coupling, he appeared in The Forsyte Saga as Montague Dartie and in Prime Suspect. In 2004 he portrayed Charles Ryder in the BBC Radio 4 production of Brideshead Revisited.

His television work continued steadily through the mid-2000s and beyond. He appeared in the 2005 BBC drama Mr Harvey Lights a Candle as a teacher, and in 2006 in After Thomas as the father of a son with autism. In 2008 he played Sir Timothy in Lark Rise to Candleford and Plantagenet Palliser in the Radio 4 production The Pallisers. The following year he appeared as the head of a stock market trading firm in the BBC drama Sex, the City and Me. He later played the lead in Pulse opposite Claire Foy, with whom he also appeared in The Promise in early 2011 and subsequently in The Crown. In 2016, Miles joined the Netflix series The Crown as Peter Townsend, a role he held through 2017. That same year he appeared as the Duke of Somerset in The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses and had a guest role as Chancellor Tom Pickering in the Black Mirror episode "Hated in the Nation." In 2018 he played DSU Jack Haley in the BBC Two miniseries Collateral and George Burrows in The Romanoffs. His 2019 television work included Commander Danny Hart in The Capture and John Profumo in The Trial of Christine Keeler, both on BBC One. Miles was subsequently cast as Tay Kolma, a banker and friend of Mon Mothma, in the Star Wars series Andor, which ran from 2022 to 2025.

Miles has worked repeatedly with director James McTeigue, appearing in the 2005 film V for Vendetta as government propagandist Roger Dascombe, as well as in Ninja Assassin and Speed Racer.

His stage career has included significant classical and contemporary work. In 2005 he played Bolingbroke in the Old Vic's production of Richard II alongside his father-in-law, actor Gary Raymond. In summer 2011 he starred as Robert in Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End, directed by Ian Rickson, with Kristin Scott Thomas as his wife and Douglas Henshall as his best friend and her lover. In 2014 he played Thomas Cromwell in the RSC productions of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, performed in Stratford and at the Aldwych Theatre in London. Miles collaborated with Mantel on the stage adaptation of her novel The Mirror & the Light at the Gielgud Theatre, in which he also starred. Mantel additionally selected him to record the audiobook versions of her trilogy.

On Broadway, Miles appeared in The Norman Conquests: Living Together and The Norman Conquests: Table Manners in 2009, playing Tom. The Norman Conquests received a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play during his time in the production, and Miles was part of the ensemble that earned a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance that year. He returned to Broadway with Wolf Hall Parts One & Two, for which his performance as Thomas Cromwell earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Play. His final Broadway credit was The Lehman Trilogy, in which he starred as one of the Lehman Brothers, a role he had first performed at the Lyttelton Theatre in London in 2018.

Miles is married to actress Emily Raymond, daughter of Gary Raymond, and the couple have three children. The two appeared together in a 1999 episode of Peak Practice.