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
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.
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.
Nobody's really unsympathetic, I think. People do good and bad things. If a character's totally unsympathetic, they're not real and I'm not interested. Even the real monsters have to have a spark of something you can relate to.
I wouldn't want to leave it so long before doing a play again, I get very stolid and sluggish if I do too much telly.
I try to be fussy about the parts I play. I think that's quite prudent, it means you're stretching different muscles, and you're scaring yourself by doing something which is out of your comfort zone.