Julian Ovenden

Julian Ovenden is an English actor, singer, and recording artist born on 29 November 1976 in Sheffield, South Yorkshire. One of three children of the Reverend Canon John Ovenden, a former chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II, he sang as a boy in the St Paul's Cathedral Choir in London before winning a music scholarship to Eton College. He went on to read music at New College, Oxford on a choral scholarship, and later pursued dramatic training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Although he received training as an opera singer, he has applied his musical background primarily to musical theatre and performance.

Ovenden's stage career spans productions in London's West End, New York, and beyond. His Broadway appearance came in 2006 when he appeared in Butley at the Booth Theatre opposite Nathan Lane. In New York he also appeared in Death Takes a Holiday for the Roundabout Theatre Company and Show Boat at the Lincoln Center. His West End credits include the multi award-winning Merrily We Roll Along and Grand Hotel, both directed by Michael Grandage at the Donmar Warehouse, as well as My Night with Reg at the same venue. Additional theatre work includes Michel Legrand's Marguerite at the Haymarket directed by Jonathan Kent, A Woman of No Importance directed by Adrian Noble at the Haymarket, Annie Get Your Gun directed by Richard Jones at the Young Vic, King Lear directed by Yukio Ninagawa for the RSC, Finding Neverland for the Weinstein Company, the Parisian premiere of Sunday in the Park with George, Ivo van Hove's All About Eve at the Noël Coward Theatre opposite Gillian Anderson, and South Pacific at the Chichester Festival Theatre. He has also performed musical theatre repertoire in concerts at the Proms, including programs dedicated to Stephen Sondheim and to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

On British television, Ovenden first gained recognition through a recurring role across five seasons of Foyle's War opposite Michael Kitchen, and he appeared in two series of Downton Abbey. Other British television credits include The Forsyte Saga, Any Human Heart, and The Royal. In 2015 he played Captain Georg von Trapp in the ITV live broadcast The Sound of Music Live. More recently he has portrayed Robert F. Kennedy in The Crown and starred as William de Nogaret in Knightfall. In the United States, he was a recurring cast member on Person of Interest, playing Jeremy Lambert, for three years, and has appeared in Cashmere Mafia, Related, and SMASH. His film work includes Colonia opposite Emma Watson and Daniel Brühl, The Confessions alongside Daniel Auteuil, Toni Servillo, and Connie Nielsen, and the British war film Allies, in which he played Captain Gabriel Jackson.

As a concert artist, Ovenden has performed with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, the New York Pops, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic, the Northern Sinfonia, the John Wilson Orchestra, and the BBC Concert Orchestra. He is a regular performer at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall and made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2014, returning for a second concert there in 2015. Ovenden released his debut album, If You Stay, on Decca Records in 2013. He has also recorded a Rodgers and Hammerstein album with John Wilson for Warner Classics, contributed to the Christmas at Downton Abbey record for Warner Music, which went double platinum, and in 2016 released Be My Love following a deal signed with East West Records in late 2015. Ovenden lives with his wife, opera singer Kate Royal, and their son and daughter.