Matthew Macfadyen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Matthew Macfadyen
Matthew Macfadyen as Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice
Birth name	David Matthew Macfadyen
Born	October 17, 1974 (age 32)
Notable roles	Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice (2005) Tom Quinn in Spooks (2002–04)

Matthew Macfadyen (born October 17, 1974) is a British actor, best known for his role as MI5 agent Tom Quinn in the BBC television drama series Spooks and for starring as Fitzwilliam Darcy in the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice.

After having studied at the renowned Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts from 1992 to 1995, Macfadyen quickly became a well-known actor on the British stage, due primarily to his work with the stage company Cheek by Jowl, for whom he played Antonio in The Duchess of Malfi, Charles Surface in The School for Scandal, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. His Benedick was particularly memorable, played as an officer-class buffoon with a moustache and a braying laugh. In 2005, he played to further great acclaim the part of Prince Hal in Henry IV, Parts One and Two at the Royal National Theatre, with Michael Gambon in the lead. He has recently accepted to portray Clay, a stay at home father with a liberal attitude in the play The Pain and the Itch. It opens on June 21 and will be running until July 21, 2007.

Macfadyen's major TV breakthrough came when he appeared as Hareton Earnshaw in a television adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel Wuthering Heights, screened on the ITV network in 1998. Further television drama work followed, including starring roles in the dramas Warriors (1999) and The Way We Live Now (2001), both for the BBC. Also in 2001, he earned much critical acclaim for his starring role in the BBC Two drama serial Perfect Strangers, which was written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff. In 2002 he starred in The Project, a BBC drama charting New Labour's rise to power.

Also in 2002, he took his highest-profile role to date, when he was picked to star in Spooks, which went on to become a huge popular and critical success when screened on BBC One. A longer second season was screened in 2003, and a third season was broadcast in the autumn of 2004, with Macfayden leaving the series in the second episode. The series also found a following on cable television in the United States, where it aired as MI-5 on the A&E Network.

One of his most current projects is a television movie called Secret Life (2007) and deals with the controversial subject of paedophilia. It started filming in October 2006 and is scheduled to be viewed on television sometime this year. He also appeared in a short sketch for Comic Relief as the groom in "Mr Bean's Wedding", alongside Rowan Atkinson and Michelle Ryan.

Macfadyen has also appeared in several films, most notably Enigma (released in 2001), in which he was cast as a battle-scarred submarine commander, and the starring role as Fitzwilliam Darcy in a highly acclaimed adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, released in the UK in September 2005.

Later this year he will star in Frank Oz's "Death At A Funeral" with Rupert Graves, Alan Tudyk, Daisy Donovan, and his Spooks co-star Keeley Hawes. He has also accepted a part in Incendiary, which is based off Chris Cleave's novel about a woman whose life is torn apart when her husband and infant son are killed in a suicide bombing at a soccer match. Her trauma is intensified by the fact that she was committing adultery at the time. Macfadyen a senior anti-terrorist police officer alongside Michelle Williams and Ewan Mcgregor

In 2003, he began a relationship with Keeley Hawes. They were married on 8 October 2004. Their first child, daughter Maggie, was born in December 2004. Macfadyen is stepfather to Hawes' son, Myles (b. 2000), from a previous marriage. The couple announced the birth of a baby boy, Ralph, in September 2006.