Early life

Born in Glasgow, Paterson spent three years as a quantity surveyor's apprentice before attending the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Career

Paterson made his professional acting debut in 1967, appearing alongside Leonard Rossiter in Bertolt Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. In 1970, Paterson joined the Citizen's Theatre for Youth. He remained there as an actor and assistant director until 1972, when he left to appear with Billy Connolly in The Great Northern Welly Boot Show at the Edinburgh Festival. Paterson would work with Connolly again, some years later, when he performed in Connolly's play An Me Wi' a Bad Leg Tae.

Paterson spent much of the 1970s in John McGrath's theatre company, 7:84, touring the United Kingdom and Europe with plays such as The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil. He was a founding member of 7:84, and made his London debut in 1976 with the company. He appeared in the Edinburgh Festival and London with John Byrne's first play, Writer's Cramp, and he first appeared in the West End when he took over the lead role in Whose Life Is It Anyway? at the Savoy Theatre in 1979.

Paterson's career began to centre more on television than the theatre. His first appearances included the 1978 BAFTA award winning drama Licking Hitler, and playing King James in the UK television serial Will Shakespeare the same year. He played Lopakhin in the BBC production of 'The Cherry Orchard' in 1981. Paterson did not, however, entirely neglect the theatre, and in 1982, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance as Schweyk in another Brecht play, Schweik in the Second World War at the National Theatre. He was in the original National Theatre production of Guys and Dolls (1982), Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court and Duke of York's (1991-92) and Ivanov at the Almeida, London and Maly Theatre, Moscow (1997). His most recent theatre is "Earthquakes in London" at the National Theatre in the summer of 2010

The early 1980s also saw Paterson beginning to appear in films, including The Killing Fields, Comfort and Joy and A Private Function (all 1984). Other film credits include Dutch Girls (1985), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1987), The Witches (1990), Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990), Chaplin (1992), Sir Ian McKellen's Richard III (1995), Bright Young Things (2003), Miss Potter (2006), How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) and Creation (2009).

His extensive and award winning TV career includes a memorable portrayal of villain Ally Fraser in series 2 of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1986), Smiley's People (1982), The Singing Detective (1986), Traffik (1988), The Crow Road (1996) and Doctor Zhivago (2002).

In 1997, he appeared as Brian in Spice World.

Much of his later work has been for the BBC, starring as Dr. Douglas Monaghan in three seasons of the supernatural drama series Sea of Souls. He also played the role of Dr. Gibson in the 1999 production of Wives and Daughters, and appeared in the 2008 BBC production of the Charles Dickens novel Little Dorrit as Mr. Meagles, as DS Box in the first series of Criminal Justice (2008), and as Dr. James Niven in Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen in 2009. Since 2009, he has appeared as George Castle, the head of the CPS in Law & Order: UK.

Throughout his career he has appeared regularly in radio drama and provided the narration for a large number of documentaries. He provided the voice of the Assistant Arcturan Pilot in Episode 7 of the original BBC Radio 4 version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1981. In 2005, he would take a similar role as Rob McKenna, a lorry driver and unknowing Rain God, in Fits the 19th, 20th, and 22nd of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quandary Phase. He also played the key role of SIS Chief Percy Alleline in the 2009 BBC Radio 4 version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

In 2010, Paterson starred in Doctor Who as Professor Edwin Bracewell, in the episode "Victory of the Daleks", with his character making a second appearance in the opening half of the season finale, "The Pandorica Opens". Later in the year, Paterson narrated the BBC Four wildlife documentary Birds Britannia.

In 2011, Paterson starred in Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me as the Judge of Jonathan's case.

Paterson plays lawyer Ned Gowan in the 2014 Starz period TV series, Outlander.

Paterson has also narrated for various television and radio programmes. In 2003, Paterson began broadcasting radio stories about his childhood in Glasgow, Tales From the Back Green on BBC Scotland, which led to them being published by Hodder in 2008 and appearances at many book festivals throughout the UK. He narrated the 2009 BBC TV programme 1929 - The Great Crash which recalled the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and compared it to the recent financial turmoil of 2008. He also narrates the BBC's annual coverage of Edinburgh Military Tattoo and in 2013 appeared as Adam Smith in The Low Road at the Royal Court.

Personal life

In 1984, Paterson married stage designer Hildegard Bechtler, with whom he has a son and a daughter. They live in London.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1974 & 1977 & 1978 & 1980 & 1981 & 1983	Play for Today	7:48/Luke/Archie MacLean/Actor/Tony/Ron Brackett	TV
1976	The Flight of the Heron	Sergeant	TV
1977	Backs to the Land	Forbes	TV
1978	ITV Playhouse	Gary	TV
	Life of Shakespeare	King James I	TV
	The Odd Job	Sergeant Mull
1979	One Fine Day	Second Man in Lift	TV film
	Telford's Change	Kevin	TV
	Scottish Playbill		TV
1979 - 1981	Crown Court	Dr. Rutherford	TV
1980	The Lost Tribe	Moshe Kaydan	TV Mini-Series
1981	The Cherry Orchard	Lopakhin	TV film
1982	Smiley's People	Lauder Strickland	TV Mini-Series
1983	The Ploughman's Lunch	Lecturer
	One of Ourselves	Mr. Daly	TV film
1984	Comfort and Joy	Alan
	The Killing Fields	Dr. MacEntire
	Scotland's Story	David Kirkwood/Thomas Muir	TV
	A Private Function	Morris Wormold the Meat Inspector
1985	Dutch Girls	Mole	TV film
1986	Auf Wiedersehen, Pet	Ally Fraser	TV series
	Defence of the Realm	Jack MacLeod
	God's Chosen Car Park	Victor Rosen	TV film
	The Singing Detective	Dr. Gibbon	TV
1987	Screenplay		TV
	Friendship's Death	Sullivan
	Coming Up Roses	Mr. Valentine
1988	The Modern World: Ten Great Writers	Titorelli	TV
	Hidden City	Anthony
	The Adventures of Baron Munchausen	Henry Salt
1989	The Return of the Musketeers	Charles I
	The Rachel Papers	Gordon Highway
	Traffik	Jack Lithgow	TV
	Boon	Peter Mortan	TV
1990	God on the Rocks	Mr. Marsh	TV film
	The Witches	Mr. Albert Jenkins
	The Play on One	Alex McPherson	TV
	Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale	Jordan
	Truly, Madly, Deeply	Sandy
	Just Ask for Diamond	Chief Inspector Snape
1991	Shrinks	Matt Hennessey	TV
	The Object of Beauty	Victor Swayle
	Murder Most Horrid	Chief Inspector	TV
1992	Tell Tale Hearts	Anthony Steadman	TV Mini-Series
	Chaplin	Stage Manager
	In Dreams	Dr. Gold	TV film
1993	Screen One	PC Howard Mullen	TV
1994	Hard Times	Stephen Blackpool	TV
1995	Jackanory	Storyteller	TV
	The Turnaround	James Webb
	Oliver's Travels	Baxter	TV Mini-Series
	Richard III	Sir Richard Ratcliff
	Ghostbusters of East Finchley	Joe Small	TV
1996	The Writing on the Wall	Bull	TV film
	The Crow Road	Kenneth McHoan	TV
	Sharman		TV series episode 1
	Victory	Captain Davidson
1997	Melissa	DCI Cameron	TV Mini-Series
	Spice World	Brian
	Mr. White Goes to Westminister	Ben White	TV film
1998	Hilary and Jackie	Cello Teacher
	Out of Sight	Marcus Mildew	TV
	Oi! Get Off Our Train	Walrus (Voice)	Television Short
1999	Chrono-Perambulator	Professor Teddy Knox	Short Film
	Heart	Mr. Kreitman
	The Match	Tommy
	Sunshine	Minister of Justice
	Wives and Daughters	Mr. Gibson	TV Mini-Series
2000	Complicity	Wallace Byatt
	The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne	Sir Nicol McLean	TV
2004	Foyle's War	Patrick Jamieson	TV series
2004-2005	Shoebox Zoo	Narrator	TV series
2004-2006	Sea of Souls	Dr Douglas Monaghan	TV series
2005	Rag Tale (de)	Lucky Lloyd
2006	Amazing Grace	Henry Dundas
2008	Little Dorrit	Mr. Meagles	TV series
2009	Creation (2009 film)	Dr. Gully
2009-2011	Law & Order: UK	George Castle	TV series
2010	An Gruffalo	The Gruffalo (voice)	Short film, Gaelic version
	Doctor Who	Professor Edwin Bracewell	Two episodes - "Victory of the Daleks" and "The Pandorica Opens"
2011	The Man Who Crossed Hitler	Kurt Ohnesorge	TV
	Fast Freddie, The Widow and Me	Judge	TV
2012	Dirk Gently	Professor Jericho	TV series - 1.2
	Falcón	Ignacio Ortega	Episode "The Silent and the Damned"
2014	37 Days	Lord Morley	TV series
	Outlander	Ned Gowan	TV series
2015	The Vote	Simon Weatherstone	(live TV broadcast from the Donmar Warehouse)
2016	Dad's Army	Private Frazer	Film adaptation of original BBC sitcom

[ Source: Wikipedia ]