Matthew Macfadyen
Matthew Macfadyen
David Matthew Macfadyenis a BAFTA award-winning English actor, known for his roles as MI5 Intelligence Officer Tom Quinn in the BBC television drama series Spooks, Fitzwilliam Darcy in the 2005 film of Pride & Prejudice and Daniel in the Frank Oz comedy Death at a Funeral. He is also known for portraying John Birt in the political drama Frost/Nixon, as well as Detective Inspector Edmund Reid in the BBC series Ripper Street. In 2015 he starred in the Sky Living...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth17 October 1974
The security comes, as an actor, in knowing that you're not in control. If you try to control your career, or how people perceive you, you'll make yourself unhappy, because life doesn't work like that. So much is luck. It's much better to let yourself off, to think, 'There's nothing I can do.'
It's a real skill to be able to publicise yourself.
It must be odd, being recognisable. I would hate to lose that anonymity. It happened for a while with 'Spooks.' No one notices me now.
My vanity is I'm terribly romantic! But being married is lovely.
I think people ought to do what they feel useful at the time. If I do things because I ought to do them, I switch off.
I have felt some twinges recently, about parts I wanted to play that I may be getting too old and fat to do. 'Hamlet,' for example - maybe that's gone. I would love to play Richard II.
The lovely thing about being an actor is being anonymous, it's never having to explain yourself. And that's what I find interesting about actors or painters I admire. I don't want to know about their lives.