Early life

Macfadyen was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the son of Meinir (née Owen), a drama teacher and former actress, and Martin Macfadyen, an oil executive. His paternal grandparents were Scottish and his maternal grandparents were Welsh. Macfadyen was brought up in a number of places, including Jakarta, Indonesia, as a result of his father's occupation. He attended schools in England (including in Louth, Lincolnshire), Scotland and Indonesia, and went to Oakham School in Rutland, before being accepted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at 17.

Career

After having studied at the RADA from 1992 to 1995, Macfadyen became known in British theatre primarily for his work with the stage company Cheek by Jowl, for whom he played Antonio in The Duchess of Malfi, Charles Surface in The School for Scandal, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. His Benedick was played as an officer-class buffoon with a moustache and a braying laugh. In 2005, he played Prince Hal in Henry IV, Parts One and Two at the Royal National Theatre, with Michael Gambon in the role of Falstaff. In 2007, he returned to the stage, portraying an American, Clay, a stay at home father with a liberal attitude in the play The Pain and the Itch.

A TV breakthrough came when he appeared as Hareton Earnshaw in an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, screened on the ITV network in 1998. Further television drama work followed, including starring roles in the dramas Warriors (1999) and The Way We Live Now (2001), both for the BBC. Also in 2001, he earned acclaim for his starring role in the BBC Two drama serial Perfect Strangers, which was written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff. In 2002, he starred in The Project, a BBC drama charting New Labour's rise to power. He starred in Spooks, which became a success when screened on BBC One. A longer second season was screened in 2003, and a third season was broadcast in autumn 2004, with him leaving the series in the second episode. The series was aired as MI-5 on the A&E Network. In 2007 he appeared in the one-off Channel 4 drama Secret Life, which dealt with the controversial subject of paedophilia. Matthew won the 'Best Actor' award at the Royal Television Society 2007 Awards for this part, and was nominated for a BAFTA. He also appeared in a short sketch for Comic Relief as the bridegroom in Mr Bean's Wedding, alongside Rowan Atkinson and Michelle Ryan.

Macfadyen appeared in films including Enigma (released in 2001), and In My Father's Den, for which he received the New Zealand Screen Award for Best Actor. He stars as the romantic lead Fitzwilliam Darcy in an acclaimed adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, released in the UK in September 2005.

Macfadyen starred in Frank Oz's "Death at a Funeral" and the film Incendiary, based on Chris Cleave's novel alongside Michelle Williams and Ewan McGregor. He has also appeared in Ron Howard's film Frost/Nixon, in which he played John Birt. In 2008, he played the male lead Arthur Clennam in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit. In 2009 Macfadyen appeared alongside Academy Award nominated actress Helena Bonham Carter in the BBC Four movie Enid, based on the life of Enid Blyton, as Hugh Pollock, Blyton's publisher and first husband.

In 2010, he played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood. He starred as Prior Philip in the TV serial The Pillars of the Earth, and was the middle-aged Logan Mountstuart in Any Human Heart. In June 2010, Macfadyen won a British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Criminal Justice.

In 2011, Macfadyen made a final cameo in the BBC show Spooks, and in 2012, he played Oblonsky in Joe Wright's film, Anna Karenina. In December 2012 he played Detective Inspector Edmund Reid in BBC One's Ripper Street.

In 2013/14 he played Jeeves in the award-winning production of Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense at the Duke of York's theatre in the West End of London. The play won the 2014 Olivier award for Best New Comedy.

In 2015 Amazon Prime picked up Ripper Street and after good reviews, it has been recommissioned for a fourth and fifth season, starring Matthew Macfadyen, who said he was "delighted to be embarking on another dose of Ripper Street - blood and guts, pocket watches and Victorian headgear, wonderfully dark, moving and mysterious story lines from Mr Richard Wardlow."

Personal life

In 2002, he began a relationship with his then-married Spooks co-star Keeley Hawes. They were married in November 2004. The couple have two children, daughter Maggie (b. December 2004) and son Ralph (b. September 2006). Macfadyen is stepfather to Hawes's son, Myles, from her previous marriage. The couple are both patrons of the Lace Market Theatre in Nottingham.

Theatre

• 1994 : The Crimson Island, by Mikhail Bulgakov (Dymogatsky)
• 1994 : Lorca's Death, by Ben Benison (Rafael/Intellect)
• 1994 : The Feigned Inconstancy, by Marivaux (Chevalier)
• 1994 : The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay (Macheath)
• 1995 : One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Dale Wasserman (Chief Bromden)
• 1995 : The Libertine, by Stephen Jeffreys (John Wilmot), with My Funny Valentine
• 1995 : The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster (Antonio Bologna)
• 1996 : A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Shakespeare (Demetrius)
• 1998 : Much Ado About Nothing, by Shakespeare (Benedick)
• 1998 : The School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Charles Surface)
• 1999 : Battle Royal, by Nick Stafford (Mr. Brougham)
• 2005 : Henry IV, by Shakespeare (Prince Hal)
• 2006 : Total Eclipse, by Christopher Hampton (Paul Verlaine)
• 2007 : The Pain and the Itch, by Bruce Norris (Clay)
• 2010 : Private Lives, by Noël Coward (opposite Kim Cattrall)
• 2013 : Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, by David and Robert Goodale, Duke of York's (as Jeeves opposite Stephen Mangan's Wooster)

Filmography

Television

• 1997 : Holding the Baby, by Paul Jackson (Marcus)
• 1998 : Wuthering Heights, by David Skynner (Hareton Earnshaw)
• 1999 : Warriors, by Peter Kosminsky (Alan James)
• 2000 : Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes, by Paul Seed (Brian Waller)
• 2001 : Perfect Strangers, by Stephen Poliakoff (Daniel Symon)
• 2001 : The Way We Live Now, by David Yates (Sir Felix Carbury)
• 2002 : The Project, by Peter Kosminsky (Paul Tibbenham)
• 2002-2004: Spooks (Tom Quinn)
• 2007 : Mr Bean's Wedding (Daniel, the groom) sketch for the show The Big One for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day on 16 March 2007,
• 2007 : Secret Life, by Rowan Joffe (Charlie Webb)
• 2008 : Ashes to Ashes, by Bille Eltringham (Gil Hollis)
• 2008 : Little Dorrit, by Adam Smith & Dearbhla Walsh (Arthur Clennam)
• 2008 : Agatha Christie's Marple A Pocket Full of Rye, by Charles Palmer (Inspector Neele)
• 2009 : Enid, by James Hawes (Hugh Pollock)
• 2009 : Criminal Justice II, by Yann Demange (Joe Miller)
• 2010 : The Pillars of the Earth, by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan (Prior Philip)
• 2010 : Any Human Heart, by William Boyd (Logan Mountstuart)
• 2011 : Spooks, a one off appearance in the series finale.
• 2012- : Ripper Street by Richard Warlow (Detective Inspector Edmund Reid).
• 2013 : Ambassadors as Prince of Darkness
• 2015 : The Enfield Haunting (Guy Playfair).
• 2015 : The Last Kingdom (Uhtred Uhtredsson, Lord of Bebbenburg)
• 2016: Churchill's Secret (Randolph Churchill).

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	Maybe Baby	Nigel
2001	Enigma	Lt. Cave
2003	The Reckoning	King's Justice
2004	In My Father's Den	Paul Prior	Nominated - BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film
2005	Pride & Prejudice	Fitzwilliam Darcy	Nominated - London Film Critics Circle Award for Best British Newcomer of the Year
2006	Middletown	Gabriel Hunter
2007	Grindhouse	Eye Gouging Victim	Segment: Don't
2007	Death at a Funeral	Daniel Howells
2008	Incendiary	Terence Butcher
2008	Frost/Nixon	John Birt	Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
2010	Robin Hood	Sheriff of Nottingham
2011	The Three Musketeers	Athos
2012	Anna Karenina	Oblonsky
2014	Lost in Karastan	Emil Forester

Voice work

• 2000 : The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin (reader)
• 2001 : Trampoline, by Meredith Oakes (Skeggs)
• 2003 : Essential Poems (To Fall In Love With) (actor/reader)
• 2004 : The Coma, by Alex Garland (reader)
• 2004 : Getting Away From It: The Island, by Tim Pears (reader)
• 2004 : The Hungerford Massacre (narrator)
• 2005 : Stories We Could Tell, by Tony Parsons (reader)
• 2006 : The 9/11 Liars (narrator)
• 2006 : Nuremberg: Nazis On Trial (narrator)
• 2007 : Robin Hood's Quest & The Quest for Aladdin's Treasure (narrator)
• 2007 : The Making of Music (reader)
• 2007 : The Blair Years (narrator)
• 2007 : Last Party at the Palace (narrator)
• 2008 : Dangerous Jobs for Girls (narrator)
• 2008 : Words of War (narrator)
• 2009 : Wine (narrator)
• 2009 : Inside MI5 (narrator)
• 2011: M&S food adverts
• 2011: Bupa healthcare adverts
• 2014: Horse Power Documentary on Scuderia Ferrari / Shell Motorsport on Sky Atlantic (narrator)
• 2015: "The Enfield Haunting" a three part dramatisation of the terrifying and bizarre real events that took place at an ordinary house in Enfield during the autumn of 1977. Sky Living

[ Source: Wikipedia ]