Paddy Considine

Patrick George Considine (born 5 September 1973) is an English actor, director, and screenwriter.

He is known for playing antiheros in independent film.

In 1990, he enrolled to do a National Diploma in Performing Arts at Burton College, where he first met Shane Meadows.

In 1994, Considine moved away to study photography at the University of Brighton.

While there he studied under social documentarian Paul Reas, who described one project, portraits of Considine's parents in their house in Winshill, as "fucking brilliant".

At one point, Considine was threatened with expulsion, but graduated with a first-class BA.

His first major onscreen appearance was in his first collaboration with filmmaker/director Shane Meadows, was in A Room for Romeo Brass (1999), and was Alfie in Paweł Pawlikowski's Last Resort (2000).

After graduating from university, Meadows cast Considine in several short films, as well as his second film, A Room for Romeo Brass (1999).

Considine, in his screen debut, played the disturbed character Morell.

Considine's performance in the film led to Paweł Pawlikowski casting him in his first starring role in Last Resort (2000).

Considine played the lead role as love-struck misfit Alfie, for which he won the Best Actor award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Considine increased his profile during the early to mid-2000s with supporting and starring roles in cult films such as 24 Hour Party People and In America.

Other credits include Doctor Sleep (2002), 24 Hour Party People (2002), In America (2003), My Summer of Love (2004), Dead Man's Shoes (2004), winning the 2005 Empire Award for Best British Actor, and a nomination for the BIFA Award for Best Actor.

In 2004, Considine starred in what was then the most significant role of his career, as Richard in Meadows' revenge film Dead Man's Shoes (2004), a film he cowrote and for which he won the Best British Actor Award at the 2005 Empire Awards.

In the same year, he starred in My Summer of Love, his second film with director Pawel Pawlikowski.

Both films were recognised on the award circuit, where Considine earned five nominations and two wins.

The following year, Considine played Frank Thorogood (the suspected murderer of Rolling Stones co-founder Brian Jones) in Stoned (2005).

It was around this time that Considine earned his reputation as a popular portrayer of cinema villains, antiheroes, and darker characters.

2005 also saw the release of Considine's second Hollywood film, Cinderella Man.

On television, Considine has been lead in Pu-239 (2006), My Zinc Bed (2008), Red Riding (2009), Informer (2018), The Suspicions of Mr Whicher series of television films (2013-2014).

Considine appeared in the Spanish thriller Bosque de Sombras (2006).

It was during the filming of this that Considine penned what later became his debut short, Dog Altogether.

Considine claims that it was his co-star Gary Oldman who gave him the confidence to make the film, which led to him thanking Oldman during his BAFTA acceptance speech.

In 2006, he starred in Pu-239 as Timofey Berezin, a worker at a Russian nuclear facility who gets exposed to a lethal dose of radiation.

He has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard British Film Awards, British Independent Film Awards and a Silver Lion for Best Short Film at the 2007 Venice Film Festival.

He wrote and directed Dog Altogether (2007), winning a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film, and its 2011 feature film adaptation Tyrannosaur which won BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

He directed and starred in Journeyman.

In 2007, Considine landed roles in two popular big-budget films; the third film in the Bourne Trilogy film series, The Bourne Ultimatum, in which he played newspaper reporter Simon Ross, and Hot Fuzz, in which he had his first comedic role as DS Andy Wainwright.

In 2008, Considine starred in My Zinc Bed a TV film for BBC / HBO.

In 2009, he starred as Peter Hunter in the Channel 4 miniseries Red Riding: 1980, based on the novels by David Peace, and another collaboration with Meadows, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, a film which was unscripted, adlibbed, and filmed in five days at a cost of £48,000, and which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

In 2011, Considine starred in a film adaptation of Joe Dunthorne's book Submarine, which Richard Ayoade wrote and directed.

Also in 2011, Considine appeared as Porter Nash in the adaptation of the Ken Bruen novel Blitz, as well as starring as Jack Whicher in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, written by Helen Edmundson and Neil McKay.

In the same year, Considine was briefly reunited with one of his A Room for Romeo Brass co-stars, BAFTA-winning actress Vicky McClure.

The two shared the screen in a television advert to promote "Films for Life Season".

Other television credits include Peaky Blinders (2016), The Outsider (2020), The Third Day (2020), and most notably he played a lead role as King Viserys I Targaryen in House of the Dragon (2022).

Considine was born in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, where he still resides.

He grew up with his brother and four sisters in a council estate in Winshill, a village of Burton.

His father, Martin Joseph Considine, was Irish.

Considine attended, among other schools, Abbot Beyne Senior School and Burton College.

On stage, Considine received Olivier Awards and Tony Award nominations as Best Actor in 2018 and 2019 for his performances in The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre, at the Gielgud Theatre, and at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway.