Stephen Dillane

Stephen J. Dillane (born 27 March 1957) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Leonard Woolf in the 2002 film The Hours, Stannis Baratheon in Game of Thrones, and American politician Thomas Jefferson in the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams, a part which earned him a Primetime Emmy nomination. An accomplished stage actor who has been called an "actor's actor", he holds a Tony Award for his lead performance in Tom Stoppard's play The Real Thing (2000) and is also known for critically acclaimed performances in Angels in America (1993), Hamlet (1994), and a one-man Macbeth (2005). His television work has additionally garnered him BAFTA and International Emmy awards for best actor.

Early life

Dillane was born in Kensington to an English mother, Bridget (née Curwen), and an Australian surgeon father, Dr John Dillane. The eldest of his siblings (his younger brother Richard is also an actor), he grew up in Beckenham, Kent.

At school Dillane began performing in end-of-term plays and had "a certain facility" for funny accents. He often found himself in women's roles, which he says "wasn’t good for my confused adolescent psyche", but also recalls a part in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as being particularly memorable, noting that shouting "Fire!" as Rosencrantz while pointing at the audience was "a very thrilling thing to be able to do."