Rafe Spall

Rafe Joseph Spall was born on 10 March 1983 in East Dulwich, London, the second of three children of actor Timothy Spall and Shane Spall. He was named after the protagonist in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, a role his father had performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and one Spall would later take on himself at the Young Vic Theatre and Barbican Theatre in 2005. From an early age he intended to pursue acting, and at 15 he left Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College, where he had achieved poor grades, to join the National Youth Theatre. At 17 he was unsuccessful in auditions for drama schools including RADA but continued working as an actor regardless. During his teenage years Spall struggled with his weight, an experience he has described as painful, and at 19 he lost approximately 35 kg, which he credits with opening up a wider range of acting opportunities.

Spall began his stage career in 2002 with two productions: A Prayer for Owen Meany at the National Theatre, in which he played Harold Crosby, Coach Chickering, and Larry Lish, and Just a Bloke at the Royal Court Theatre, where he played Nathan. Subsequent stage work in London included John Gabriel Borkman at the Donmar Warehouse in 2007, Alaska at the Royal Court Theatre that same year, Hello and Goodbye with the English Touring Theatre in 2008, and If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet at the Bush Theatre in 2009. In 2012 he played Roland in Nick Payne's Constellations at the Royal Court Theatre. In 2007 he also appeared onstage for the first time alongside his father in the ITV adaptation of A Room with a View, the two playing father and son.

Spall made his Broadway debut in 2013, playing Jerry in Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. His stage work has continued in London, where he appeared as Brack in Hedda Gabler at the Royal National Theatre in 2016, performed in Death of England at the Royal National Theatre in 2020, and took on a role in the Gielgud Theatre production of To Kill a Mockingbird in 2022.

His screen career began with film roles including The Calcium Kid (2004), Green Street (2005), and Kidulthood (2006). Spall has collaborated repeatedly with director Edgar Wright, appearing in Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End, and Wright's segment in the 2007 film Grindhouse. In 2011 he starred opposite Anne Hathaway in One Day, and in 2012 he portrayed Canadian author Yann Martel in Ang Lee's Life of Pi, which won four Academy Awards and earned over $600 million at the box office. His subsequent film credits include I Give It a Year (2013), X+Y (2014) alongside Asa Butterfield and Sally Hawkins, The Big Short (2015), Swallows and Amazons (2016), The Ritual (2017), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) in which he played Eli Mills, and Men in Black: International (2019).

On television, Spall played the title role of Pete Griffiths in Pete versus Life from 2010 to 2011 and has appeared in The Shadow Line, Black Mirror, and the History Channel series Sons of Liberty (2015), in which he played John Hancock. He played Harry Price in ITV's Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, which aired on 27 December 2015, and DS Bailey in the 2020 BBC drama The Salisbury Poisonings. Since May 2020 he has starred in the Apple TV+ comedy series Trying opposite Esther Smith and Imelda Staunton.

Spall is a patron of the Actors' Centre and a supporter of Crystal Palace Football Club. He met actress Elize du Toit in February 2008 and the two married on 14 August 2010, going on to have three children together before the marriage ended in 2021. He is currently in a relationship with his Trying co-star Esther Smith, with whom he has a child born in 2024.