Martin Freeman

Born: September 8 1971
Where: Aldershot, Hampshire, UK

The actor - who played the perennially put-down Tim in the comedy series The Office - landed his first big screen lead as Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The youngest of four boys and a girl born into a Catholic family, Freeman first acted for the local Youth Action Theatre in Teddington, London.

During his involvement with the group, he took the stage in Kiev, Ukraine, during an exchange trip with students from Gorbachev's USSR.

He went on to study theatre at London's Central School of Speech and Drama and subsequently found work at the National Theatre.

After his screen debut in the 1998 short I Just Want To Kiss You, his first feature outing was Jamie Thraves' drama The Lowdown the same year.

However, it was on TV that he was first to make his mark, firstly as Jamie in Men Only and then as Tim opposite Ricky Gervais in the Golden Globe-winning The Office.

In 2002, he played Ricky C opposite Sacha Baren Cohen in the big screen version of Ali G Indahouse and he went on to play a mild-mannered porn actor in Richard Curtis' Love Actually.

He played Lord Shaftsbury in the TV mini-series Charles II: The Power and the Passion and had a minor role in Simon Pegg's acclaimed 2004 zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead.

A fan of seventies jazz and soul, he lives in London with his actress girlfriend Amanda Abbington.

In 2005, he played Arthur Dent opposite Bill Nighy's Slartibartfast in the big screen adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.