Paddy Considine

Patrick George Considine was born on 5 September 1973 in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, where he continues to reside. The youngest of six children, he grew up with a brother and four sisters on a council estate in Winshill. His father, Martin Joseph Considine, was Irish and died in 2006. Considine attended Abbot Beyne Senior School and Burton College, enrolling in 1990 in a National Diploma in Performing Arts program at the latter, where he first encountered filmmaker Shane Meadows. In 1994 he moved to the University of Brighton to study photography under social documentarian Paul Reas, graduating with a first-class BA.

Considine's screen career began through his renewed collaboration with Meadows following university. Meadows cast him as the disturbed character Morell in A Room for Romeo Brass (1999), his first major onscreen appearance. That performance led directly to director Paweł Pawlikowski casting him in the lead role of love-struck misfit Alfie in Last Resort (2000), for which Considine won Best Actor at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. He continued building his profile in the early 2000s through supporting and starring roles in 24 Hour Party People (2002), In America (2003), and Doctor Sleep (2002). In 2004, he co-wrote and starred in Meadows' revenge film Dead Man's Shoes, playing Richard, a role that earned him the Best British Actor Award at the 2005 Empire Awards and a BIFA nomination for Best Actor. That same year he appeared in My Summer of Love, his second collaboration with Pawlikowski, and in My Summer of Love. He also appeared in Cinderella Man (2005) and played Frank Thorogood in Stoned (2005).

During the filming of the Spanish thriller Bosque de Sombras (2006), Considine wrote what became his debut short film, Dog Altogether (2007), crediting co-star Gary Oldman with giving him the confidence to make it. The film won a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film. Its 2011 feature-length adaptation, Tyrannosaur, won the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. In 2007 he appeared in two major studio productions: The Bourne Ultimatum, in which he played journalist Simon Ross, and Hot Fuzz, in which he played DS Andy Wainwright. He later reunited with the Hot Fuzz cast and crew on The World's End (2013), playing one of five friends reattempting a pub crawl. Considine also wrote and directed Journeyman, in which he starred.

On television, Considine starred in Pu-239 (2006) as Timofey Berezin, a worker at a Russian nuclear facility exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. He appeared in My Zinc Bed (2008), the Channel 4 miniseries Red Riding (2009), and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher series of television films (2013–2014), playing Jack Whicher. Further television credits include Peaky Blinders (2016), Informer (2018), The Outsider (2020), and The Third Day (2020), in which he portrayed Mr Martin alongside Jude Law. Beginning in August 2022, he played King Viserys I Targaryen in the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, a role he continued through 2024.

Considine made his professional stage debut in April 2017 in The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre, before the production transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End. The play subsequently moved to the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway, where previews began on 2 October 2018, and it closed on 7 July 2019 after winning four Tony Awards. For his portrayal of Quinn Carney, Considine received nominations for Best Actor at both the Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards, and was presented with a Theatre World Award in 2019. Across his career, Considine has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard British Film Awards, British Independent Film Awards recognition, and a Silver Lion for Best Short Film at the 2007 Venice Film Festival.