Actor Eddie Marsan said he wants to share his honor for services to drama with “my wife, my family and the people I grew up with in Bethnal Green” after being made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
The 56-year-old, recognized in the New Year Honours, is known for roles including Amy Winehouse’s father Mitch in the biopic Back To Black (2024), villain Kenneth ‘Red’ Parker Jr in Hancock (2008) and magician Gilbert Norrell in the BBC fantasy series Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
Marsan said: “I am shocked, delighted and deeply honored to receive this award. I am only in this position because of the constant love and support of my wife, my family and the people I grew up with in Bethnal Green, so I share this with all of them.”
Born in Stepney, London, in 1968, Marsan, the son of a lorry driver and school lunch lady, grew up on an estate in Bethnal Green Council. He attended Raine’s Foundation School, leaving at the age of 16 to begin a short stint with an apprenticeship as a printer, before beginning his career in theatre.
Marsan went on to train at the Mountview Academy of Theater Arts, before gaining a place at the Kogan Academy of Dramatic Arts, which has since been renamed The School of the Science of Acting.
Early in his screen career, he appeared in the soaps Casualty, The Bill and Grange Hill, after making his first television appearance as a ‘yob’ in the comedy series The Piglet Files in 1992.
As unstable driving instructor Scott in the comedy drama Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), he won the London Film Critics Circle Award and the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 2011, he starred as the abusive husband of Oscar winner Olivia Colman’s character in the drama film Tyrannosaur, which won a Bafta gong for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.
Marsan has had other notable roles in V For Vendetta (2006), The World’s End (2013), Vera Drake (2004), Mission: Impossible III (2006), Miami Vice (2006) and as Inspector Lestrade in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes ( 2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows (2011).
Between 2013 and 2020, he appeared in the American crime drama series Ray Donovan, as the main character’s brother Terry Donovan, who was a former boxer suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Most recently, the actor appeared in three episodes of Netflix drama Heartstopper as therapist Geoff, in the latest series of Channel 4 drama Suspect as Dr Alistair Underwood, and in the Guy Ritchie film The Gentlemen.
He was also anti-fascist activist Soly Malinovsky in the BBC adaptation of the novel Ridley Road (2021), and appeared as a crime boss in the science fiction Amazon series The Power, which explores a fictional world where young women discover they can release electric shocks from their fingertips.
Other roles have included American politician Paul Wolfowitz in 2018’s Vice, King Henry VIII’s advisor Edward Seymour in 2024’s Firebrand, and as Nazi Heinrich Himmler in 2016’s The Exception.
At the 2022 Bafta Cymru Awards, he was nominated for a Best Actor award for his role in the Wales-filmed mystery series The Pact. Marsan married make-up artist Janine Schneider in 2002 and the couple have four children. He is also a humanist and was named Patron of Humanists UK in 2015 for his exploration of the human condition through the arts.
Throughout his career, Marsan has been critical of the lack of representation of working-class people in the arts, telling BBC Radio 5 Live in 2015 that too many dramas were written from “the white, privileged middle-class perspective”.
He has also spoken out against the lack of help following his son’s diagnosis with Tourette syndrome, telling BBC Breakfast earlier this year that there is “very little help” for children with the condition, which can cause vocal and physical tics.
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