Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott (born October 21, 1976) is an Irish film, television, and stage actor. He received the 2005 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre for the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs production of A Girl in a Car with a Man, and an IFTA award for the film Dead Bodies. Scott's notable television roles have included Paul McCartney in the BBC television drama Lennon Naked and arch-villain Jim Moriarty in Sherlock, for which he was awarded the 2012 British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actor, along with the 2013 award for Best Supporting Actor in the television category at the Irish Film and Television Awards He also won the awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor consecutively in the 2012 and 2013 BBC Audio Drama Awards for his roles in Nick Perry's Referee and Harold Pinter's Betrayal, respectively. Alongside this, Scott was nominated as Best Lead Actor for his role in The Stag at the 2014 Irish Film and Television Awards. Scott was ranked at number 22 in The Independent's Rainbow List 2014: 101 lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender people who really make a difference. Early years[edit] Scott attended Gonzaga College, a private Jesuit Catholic school 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 dropped out of his drama degree at Trinity College, Dublin to join Dublin’s Abbey Theatre. His father worked in an employment agency and mother was an art teacher. He once stated to the London evening standard magazine that he always had a "healthy obsession" with acting. Career[edit] 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 recently 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 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.' Most 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 [he] ' 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'. Awards and nominations[edit] 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 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 Personal life[edit] Scott is 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 plays 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!”