Sean Biggerstaff

Born: March 15 1983
Where: Glasgow, Scotland, UK

The actor is best known as Gryffindor quidditch captain Oliver Wood in the first two Harry Potter outings.

However, he has broadened his range with a starring role in the off-kilter romantic drama Cashback.

The son of a fireman and a community education worker, he was born in the Maryhill suburb of Glasgow and attended school in Milngavie.

As a seven-year-old he joined a local drama group and played Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Biggerstaff went on to make his first professional performance as the son of MacDuff in Macbeth in Glasgow's Tron Theatre.

He subsequently joined the Scottish Youth Theatre where he landed his big break when Alan Rickman asked him to be Tom in the 1996 drama The Winter Guest opposite Emma Thompson.

That appearance led to the 2001 role of quidditch skipper Oliver Wood in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (although he initially auditioned for the character of Percy Weasley).

He reprised the role the following year in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and went on to play Henry, Duke of Gloucester in the TV mini series Charles II: The Power and the Passion.

(when he quit the role of Oliver Wood there was a petition of more than 50,000 signatures imploring the studio to take him back).

In 2004, he starred as art student Ben Willis in the Oscar-nominated short and went on to play the role again in the 2008 feature version.

He played the gay son of homosexual campaigner John Wolfenden in the British TV movie Consenting Adults in 2007.