Samuel West

West made his London stage debut in February 1989 at the Orange Tree Theatre, playing Michael in Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles, of which critic John Thaxter wrote: "He invests the role with a warmth and validity that silences sniggers that could so easily greet a lesser performance of this difficult role, and he lets us share the tumbling emotions of a juvenile torn beween romantic first love and filial duty." (Richmond & Twickenham Times, 10 February, 1989).

Since then West has appeared frequently on stage and has worked for the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking the title roles in Richard II and Hamlet both directed by Steven Pimlott, and has turned his hand to directing while continuing his acting career. In October 2004 he was appointed artistic director of the Sheffield Theatres, succeeding Michael Grandage. After two years in the role he annonunced his resignation in December 2006 and stepped down in 2007.

In 1991, he played the lower-middle-class clerk Leonard Bast in the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel Howards End (released 1992) opposite Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter and Anthony Hopkins. For this role he was nominated for best supporting actor at the 1993 BAFTA Film Awards. His film career has continued with roles in a number of well known films, such as: Jane Eyre, Notting Hill, Iris and Van Helsing. In 2004 he appeared in the year's highest rated mini-series on German television, "Die Nibelungen," which was released in the USA in 2006 as Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King (also known as Ring of the Nibelungs, Curse of the Ring, and Sword of Xanten).

He is a familiar face on television appearing in many long running series: Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries as well as one off dramas. He played Anthony Blunt in Cambridge Spies a BBC production about four British spies, starring alongside Toby Stephens (Philby), Tom Hollander (Burgess) and Rupert Penry-Jones (Maclean). November 2006 saw him take the lead role in BBC Television production of Random Quest adapted from the short story by John Wyndham. West is much sought-after as a narrator of television documentaries, including the acclaimed series The Nazis: A Warning from History and The Planets, both in 1997. He has made a speciality of appearing in concert recitals: he performed the spoken lines from Shakespeare's Henry V, at the Last Night of the Proms in 2002.

West has appeared alongside his actor parents on several occasions; with his mother Prunella Scales in Howards End and Stiff Upper Lips, and with his father Timothy West on stage in A Number, Henry IV Part I and Part II. In two films - Iris (2001) and the 1996 tv film Over Here - Sam and his father have played the same character at different ages. In 2006 all three gave a rehearsed reading of the Harold Pinter play Family Voices as part of the Sheffield Theatres Pinter season.

-Wiki