Martin Freeman

Martin John Christopher Freeman (born 8 September 1971) is an English actor.

Among other accolades, he has won two Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Martin John Christopher Freeman was born on 8 September 1971 in Aldershot, Hampshire, the youngest of five children.

His parents, Philomena (née Norris) and naval officer Geoffrey Freeman, separated when he was a child.

His father died of a heart attack when Freeman was 10 years old.

Freeman's paternal grandfather, Leonard W. Freeman, was a medic in the British Expeditionary Force during World War II and was killed in action at Dunkirk just a few days before the Dunkirk evacuation.

Leonard's father, Richard, was born blind and worked as a piano tuner and organist at St Andrew's Church in West Tarring before becoming a music teacher in Kingston upon Hull.

Freeman was raised in his mother's Catholic faith, and attended the Salesian School in Chertsey, Surrey, before attending Brooklands College in nearby Weybridge for media studies.

His older brother, Tim, became a singer with the group Frazier Chorus.

Freeman attended the Central School of Speech and Drama and has appeared in at least 18 TV shows, 14 theatre productions, and several radio productions.

Freeman's most notable roles are that of Tim Canterbury in the mockumentary series The Office (2001–2003), Dr. John Watson in the British crime drama series Sherlock (2010–2017), young Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014), and Lester Nygaard in the first season of the dark comedy-crime drama series Fargo (2014).

He became notable for his role as Tim Canterbury in The Office (2001–2003), a role which, he said in 2004, "cast a very long shadow" for him as an actor.

He also appeared in several films, including Ali G Indahouse (2002) and Love Actually (2003).

He has also appeared in films including the romantic comedy Love Actually (2003), the horror comedy Shaun of the Dead (2004), the sci-fi comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), the action comedy Hot Fuzz (2007), the semi-improvised comedy Nativity! (2009), and the sci-fi comedy The World's End (2013).

He appeared in the sitcom Hardware (2003–2004).

He began to move into more serious dramatic roles on television with his appearance as Lord Shaftesbury in the 2003 BBC historical drama Charles II: The Power and The Passion.

He made a brief appearance in the first episode of the second series of This Life.

He starred in the BBC television series The Robinsons, and had a cameo in Episode 1 of Black Books.

In 2007, he appeared in The All Together written and directed by Gavin Claxton, and in the Bill Kenwright theatre production of The Last Laugh.

He is featured in the video for Faith No More's cover of "I Started a Joke".

In May 2009, he starred in Boy Meets Girl, a four-part drama that charts the progress of characters Veronica and Danny after an accident which causes them to swap bodies.

He played Dr. John Watson in Sherlock, the BBC contemporary adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories.

Its first episode, "A Study in Pink", was broadcast on 25 July 2010 to critical acclaim.

For the role, Freeman won the 2011 BAFTA award for Best Supporting Actor and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.

Freeman played lead character Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's three-part The Hobbit film series.

For his performance in the first part, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Freeman won Best Hero at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards and Best Actor at the 18th Empire Awards.

Freeman appeared in all three films of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's comedic Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, commencing with a brief non-speaking role in Shaun of the Dead as Yvonne's boyfriend, Declan, followed by a brief cameo in Hot Fuzz as a police officer.

He was a main cast member in the 2013 finale to the trilogy, The World's End.

On 5 October 2013, he was presented with a fellowship bearing his name by the members of University College Dublin's Literary & Historical Society.

In April 2014, he played insurance salesman Lester Nygaard in the dark comedy-crime drama series Fargo, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Critics' Choice Television Award.

He opened in the title role in Shakespeare's play Richard III in July 2014 at Trafalgar Studios.

In 2015, Freeman starred as producer Milton Fruchtman in the television film The Eichmann Show, based on blacklisted TV director Leo Hurwitz's filming of the 1961 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

It intercut dramatic scenes with historical footage from the trial.

The Daily Telegraph described it as "absolutely enthralling".

Since 2016, he has portrayed Everett K. Ross in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in the films Captain America: Civil War (2016), Black Panther (2018), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), and the Disney+ series Secret Invasion (2023).

Freeman also played Everett K. Ross, a Central Intelligence Agency agent in Captain America: Civil War, which was released in May 2016.

In 2017, Freeman starred in Cargo, a feature-length remake of a 2013 short film of the same name, which premiered at the Adelaide Film Festival on 6 August 2017.

Later that year he appeared opposite Tamsin Greig in Labour of Love, a political comedy by James Graham, at the Noël Coward Theatre.

Freeman portrayed fictional Labour MP David Lyons, whose modernising ideas pit him against the traditional left-wing constituency agent Jean Whittaker (Greig).

In 2018, he reprised his role as Everett K. Ross in Black Panther, which was set around two weeks after the event in Captain America: Civil War, making it his second appearance in Marvel Cinematic Universe.