| Hari Dhillon | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 (age 43–44) San Francisco, California |
| Other names | Hari Dillon Harry Dillon |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1990s-present |
Hari Dhillon (Punjabi: ਹਰੀ ਢਿੱਲੋਂ (Gurmukhi), ہری ڈھلوں (Shahmukhi), हरी ढिल्लों (Devanagari)), also rendered Hari Dillon or Harry Dillon, is an American television, film and stage actor, best known for playing Mr Michael Spence in over 100 episodes of the British television medical drama series Holby City.[1] On 20 December 2011, Dhillon's character appeared to leave the show, although there had been no publicity to say that Dhillon was leaving, and he returned on the 27th December 2011, deciding to return after saving a young boy's life in Ukraine.
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Dhillon was born[2] and raised in San Francisco, but spent nine months of his childhood in India due to his parents' concern that he would lose touch with their Punjabi heritage.[3]
He attended UC Berkeley and took an acting class in his senior year as a means of filling an art credit.[4] After graduation, he worked as a prison AIDS educator in California and Hawaii before helping some friends to set up a theatre company in San Francisco. In 1994, he attended drama school in the United Kingdom.[3]
Dhillon originally appeared in Holby City in 2001 as recurring minor character Dr. Sunil Gupta, before returning in November 2007 as consultant Michael Spence.[5] His appearances in US TV shows include Medium, Charmed, Without a Trace and The Loop.[6] He also had minor, unnamed roles in the films Cradle 2 the Grave, Wit and Entrapment.
Dhillon's theatre roles include the premiere production of Charles L. Mee's A Perfect Wedding, which was the inaugural production of the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles,[7] and the original production of Stephen Belber's Drifting Elegant at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, which was later developed into a feature film.[8] In London, he appeared in the original production of Helen Edmundson's Mother Teresa Is Dead at the Royal Court Theatre.
Dhillon has had positive reviews for many of the stage plays in which he performed. These include Mother Teresa Is Dead (2002), Royal Court Theatre, London,[9] Drifting Elegant (2004), Magic Theatre, San Francisco,[10] A Perfect Wedding (2004), Kirk Douglas Theatre, Los Angeles,[11] and Morbidity and Mortality (2006), Magic Theatre, San Francisco.[12]
Of Dhillon's performance as Dr. Anil Petal in the stage play Morbidity and Mortality, reviewer Dennis Harvey of Variety wrote "Dhillon is terrific as a modest misanthrope cured by ultra-awkward amour"'[12] while theater critic Robert Hurwitt of San Francisco Chronicle wrote his performance was "engagingly candid".[13]
Dhillon was nominated to the long-list of the 2010 National Television Awards in the category for "Best Drama Performance".[3]