Roger Allam

Born: October 26 1953
Where: London, UK

The accomplished stage and TV actor has been enjoying increasingly high-profile big screen roles in the likes of The Queen and Speed Racer.

However, it was on the stage that he first made his name with the Royal Shakespeare Company and for originating the role of Javert in the musical Les Miserables.

The son of a vicar in Bromley-By-Bow, he attended Christ’s Hospital school in Sussex, where he was forced to wear 16th century uniforms, including knee-high yellow socks, "to keep away the plague".

He was encouraged to become an opera singer (he had singing lessons with the English National Opera) but opted to study drama at Manchester University.

His first job was as part of the feminist troupe Monstrous Regiment in the 1970s which required him to sing, play piano, keyboards and guitar.

In 1979 he began at stint at London's Royal Court Theatre and in 1981 appeared in Two Gentlemen of Verona, his first role with The Royal Shakespeare Company.

The same year he made his small screen debut in ITV Playhouse but it was another eight years before he would appear on the big screen - as Dave in Wilt.

He subsequently split his work between the stage and TV with small screen appearances ranging from Between The Lines to Heartbeat.

In 1999, he played Walt Disney in the US TV movie RKO 281 with Liev Shreiber and Melanie Griffith and later landed an Olivier Award for Money in 2000.

In 2002, he landed a second Olivier for best actor for Privates on Parate at London's Donmar Warehouse and also starred with Helen Mirren and Anne Bancroft in a TV remake of The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone.

TV work includes Foyles War and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries before he was cast by director Michael Winterbottom as Adrian in A Cock & Bull Story alongside Steve Coogan.

In 2005, the Wachowski Brothers invited him to play the megalomaniac Lewis Prothero in the drama V for Vendetta and he also played an aristocratic in the IRA drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

In 2006, he memorably played alongside an Oscar-winning Helen Mirren in The Queen and replaced the disgraced Chris Langham in the acclaimed TV satire The Thick of It.

Recent work includes the role of tyrannical industrial giant Royalton in the Wachowski Brothers' family adventure Speed Racer.