Early life and education

Scott was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father, Jim, worked in an employment agency, and his mother, Nora, was an art teacher. He has an older sister, Sarah, a sports coach, and a younger sister, Hannah.

Scott attended Gonzaga College, a private Jesuit Catholic school for boys on the south side of Dublin. He took Saturday classes at a drama school for children, and appeared in two ads on Irish television. At seventeen he was chosen for a starring role in his first film, Korea. Scott won a bursary to art school, but elected to study drama at Trinity College, Dublin, leaving after six months to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. He once stated to the London Evening Standard magazine that he always had a "healthy obsession" with acting.

Career

After filming a small part in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Scott worked with film and theater director Karel Reisz in the Gate Theatre, Dublin, production of Long Day's Journey into Night taking the role of Edmund, the younger son, in the Eugene O'Neill play about a tortured American family in the early part of the 20th century. He won Actor of the Year at the Sunday Independent Spirit of Life Arts Awards 1998 and received an Irish Times Theatre Award 1998 nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Scott appeared in the small part of Michael Blodgett in the film Nora, with Ewan McGregor, and in a television adaptation of Henry James’s The American, alongside Diana Rigg and Matthew Modine, before making his London theatre debut in Conor McPherson’s Dublin Carol with Brian Cox at the Royal Court Theatre. He was then cast in the BAFTA winning drama Longitude, opposite Michael Gambon, and the multi-award winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. Scott has described the working atmosphere on Band of Brothers as "awful".

In 2004, he was named one of European Film Promotions' Shooting Stars. After starring in My Life in Film for the BBC, he received his first Olivier award for his role in A Girl in a Car with a Man at The Royal Court, and the Theatregoers' Choice Award for his performance in the National Theatre’s Aristocrats. He then created the roles of the twin brothers in the original Royal Court production of Christopher Shinn’s Dying City, which was later nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 2006, he made his Broadway debut opposite Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy in the Music Box Theater production of The Vertical Hour written by David Hare and directed by Sam Mendes, for which he was nominated for a Drama League Award.

In 2008, Scott appeared in the award-winning HBO miniseries John Adams, opposite Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti. Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter, played his sister. In 2009, he appeared in Sea Wall, a one-man show written especially for him by Olivier award-winning playwright Simon Stephens.

He starred alongside Ben Whishaw, Katherine Parkinson and Paul Jesson in a sell-out run of Cock at the Royal Court in late 2009, a production which won an Olivier Award in 2010. He has been seen in Foyle's War as a prisoner determined to allow himself to hang for a crime he may not have committed, which was described in Slant magazine as a "standout performance." Other film appearances included a role in Chasing Cotards (a short film made for IMAX), the short film, Silent Things and as Paul McCartney in the BBC film Lennon Naked. He also starred in the critically acclaimed 2010 film The Duel.

He is most well known as Sherlock Holmes' nemesis Moriarty in the BBC drama series Sherlock, and he had a guest role in the second series of Garrow's Law playing a gay man on trial for sodomy. In 2010 he appeared with Lisa Dillon and Tom Burke in the Old Vic comedy about a three-way love affair, Noël Coward's Design for Living.

In 2011 he played the lead role of Julian in Ben Power's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's epic Emperor and Galilean at the National Theatre in London.

He had a part in BBC2's original drama The Hour as Adam Le Ray, a failed, secretly gay, actor.

In addition to his stage and TV work, Scott is also known for his voice acting in radio plays and audiobooks, such as the roles of Jay Gatsby in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Ulysses.

In November 2013, Scott took part in the National Theatre's 50 Years on Stage, a theatrical event which consisted of excerpts from many plays over the National's fifty-year run and was broadcast live on television. Scott performed a scene from Angels in America by Tony Kushner alongside Dominic Cooper. Scott has described the experience as 'overwhelming', adding, 'What a night and what an honour to be there.'

Recently Scott took to the stage in Birdland, written by Simon Stephens and directed by Carrie Cracknell at the Royal Court Theatre, playing the central character of Paul, a rock star at the pinnacle of his career on the verge of a breakdown. Scott received positive reviews for the performance, with comments such as 'beautifully played' and ' pulls off the brilliant trick of being totally dead behind the eyes and fascinating at the same time, an appalling creature who's both totem and symptom'.

In 2015, he appeared in the James Bond film Spectre, as Max Denbigh, a member of the British government intent on shutting down the Double-0 section of MI6.

Scott works with the charity IdeasTap mentoring young actors and helping to start their careers.

Personal life

Scott is openly gay, and has commented that "mercifully, these days people don't see being gay as a character flaw. But nor is it a virtue, like kindness. Or a talent, like playing the banjo. It's just a fact. Of course, it's part of my make-up, but I don't want to trade on it." On being asked as to how he prepared his accent for his BBC2 drama Legacy, where he played a KGB spy, he said: "There isn't a huge amount of footage of Russians speaking English as a second language, so I started looking at Vladimir Putin videos on YouTube. But then Putin introduced anti-gay legislation this summer - so, being a gay person, I switched to Rudolf Nureyev videos instead. It was another Nureyev defection of sorts!"

Scott was ranked at number 22 in The Independent's Rainbow List 2014: 101 lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender people who 'make a real difference'.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes	Awards
1995	Korea	Eamonn Doyle	Film
1995	Budgie	Peter	TV movie
1997	Drinking Crude	Paul	Film
1998	Miracle at Midnight	Michael Grunbaum	TV movie
1998	Saving Private Ryan	Soldier on the beach	Film
1998	The Tale of Sweety Barrett	Danny	Film
1998	The American	Valentin de Bellegarde	TV movie
2000	Longitude	John Campbell	TV mini-series
2000	Nora	Michael Bodkin	Film
2001	I Was the Cigarette Girl	Tim	Short film
2001	Band of Brothers	Pvt. John "Cowboy" Hall	TV mini-series (1 episode: "Day of Days")
2003	Killing Hitler	Sniper	TV documentary
2003	Dead Bodies	Tommy McGann	Film	IFTA Award for Best Actor
2004	My Life in Film	Jones	TV series
2005	The Quatermass Experiment	Vernon	TV movie
2007	Nuclear Secrets	Andrei Sakarov	TV mini-series (1 episode: "Superbomb")
2008	John Adams	Col. William Smith	TV series (4 episodes)
2008	Little White Lie	Barry	TV movie
2009	The Duel	Laevsky	Film
2010	Chasing Cotards	Hart Elliot-Hinwood	Short film
2010	Silent Things	Jake	Short film
2010	Foyle's War	James Devereaux	TV series (1 episode: "The Hide")
2010	Lennon Naked	Paul McCartney	TV movie
2010-present	Sherlock	Jim Moriarty	TV series (7 episodes)	2012 BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series IFTA Award for Actor in a Supporting Role
2010	Garrow's Law	Captain Jones	TV series (1 episode: "Episode #2.2")
2011	The Hour	Adam Le Ray	TV series (2 episodes: 1 and 3)
2012	Sea Wall	Alex	Short film
2012	Blackout	Dalien Bevan	TV mini-series
2012	The Scapegoat	Paul	TV movie
2012	The Town	Mark Nicholas	TV series
2013	Legacy	Viktor Koslov	Film
2013	The Stag	Davin	Film
2013	Dates	Christian	TV mini-series (1 episode: "Jenny and Christian*)
2014	Locke	Donal	Film
2014	Pride	Gethin Roberts	Film	BIFA for Best Supporting Actor
2014	Jimmy's Hall	Father Seamus	Film
2015	Spectre	C (Max Denbigh)	Film
2015	Victor Frankenstein	Inspector Roderick Turpin	Film
2016	The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses	King Louis	TV series
2016	Alice Through the Looking Glass	Addison Bennett	Film
2016	Swallows and Amazons	Lazlow	Film (filming)
2016	This Beautiful Fantastic	Vernon	Film (filming)
2016	Handsome Devil		Film (filming)
2016	The Hope Rooms	Sean	Short film (post-production)
2016	Denial	Anthony Julius	Film (filming)

Stage

Production	Character	Director	Company	Awards
Brighton Beach Memoirs	Stan	Rita Tieghe	Andrew's Lane, Dublin
Six Characters in Search of an Author	The Son	John Crowley	Abbey Theatre
The Marriage of Figaro	Cherubino	Brian Brady	Abbey Theatre
A Woman of No Importance	Gerald Arbuthnot	Ben Barnes	Abbey Theatre
Lonesome West	Father Welsh	Garry Hynes	Druid Theatre Co.
Long Day's Journey into Night	Edmund	Karel Reisz	The Gate, Dublin
Dublin Carol	Mark	Ian Rickson	Old Vic/Royal Court
The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde	Lord Alfred Douglas	Patrick Mason	Abbey Theatre/Barbican, RSC
The Coming World	Ed/Ty	Mark Brickman	Soho Theatre
Crave	B	Vicky Featherstone	Royal Court
Original Sin	Angel	Peter Gill	Sheffield Crucible
Playing the Victim	Valya	Richard Wilson	Told by an Idiot
The Cavalcaders	Rory	Robin Lefevre	Tricycle Theatre
A Girl in a Car with a Man	Alex	Joe Hill-Gibbins	Royal Court	Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre
Aristocrats	Casimir	Tom Cairns	National Theatre
Dying City	Craig/Peter	James McDonald	Royal Court
The Vertical Hour	Philip Lucas	Sam Mendes	The Music Box, NY	Nominated - Drama League Award
Sea Wall	Alex	George Perrin	The Bush Theatre
Roaring Trade		Roxana Silbert	Soho Theatre
Cock	M	James McDonald	Royal Court	Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre
Design for Living	Leo	Anthony Page	Old Vic
Emperor and Galilean	Julian	Jonathan Kent	Royal National Theatre
Birdland (2014)	Paul	Carrie Cracknell	Royal Court Theatre
Letters Live			Freemasons' Hall
The Dazzle (2015)	Langley	Simon Evans	Found111 Theatre

Awards and nominations

Theatre

• 1998 - Irish Times Theatre Awards, Nominated, Best Supporting Actor - For Long Day's Journey into Night
• 2005 - Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, Winner - For A Girl in a Car with a Man
• 2006-2007 - Drama League Award, Nominated, Distinguished Performance - For The Vertical Hour

Films

• 2003 - IFTA award, Winner, Best Actor in a Lead Role - For Dead Bodies
• 2004 - Berlin International Film Festival, Winner, Shooting Stars Award
• 2014 - IFTA award, Nominated, Actor in a Lead Role in a Feature Film - For The Stag
• 2014 - British Independent Film Awards, Winner, Best supporting actor - For Pride
• 2015 - Irish Film & Television Awards, Nominated, Actor in a Supporting Role in a Feature Film - For Pride

Television

• 2012 - British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor, Winner - For Sherlock
• 2012 - BBC Audio Drama Awards, Winner, Best Supporting Actor - For Referee
• 2013 - IFTA award, Winner, Best Supporting TV Actor - For Sherlock
• 2013 - BBC Audio Drama Awards, Winner, Best Actor - For Betrayal

[ Source: Wikipedia ]