Harry Lloyd Biography

HARRY LLOYD

Date of Birth: November 17, 1983

Harry Charles Salusbury Lloyd was born in London, England to children's publisher Marion Evelyn Dickens and Jonathan Lloyd, who runs a literary agency. Harry is the great-great-great-grandson of author Charles Dickens on his mother's side of the family.

Harry is a big fan of his ancestor. "As a child I was fascinated by the stories of Dickens acting out everything in front of the mirror as he wrote it down. Later, when you approach his work as an actor, you notice how sayable the dialogue is. Even with a book like Our Mutual Friend, which has 100 characters, they've all got their own own dialect, their own idiosyncrasies," he told the Evening Standard.

While studying at Eton, Harry was cast in his first television role at the age of 15 in, ironically, an adaptation of one of Dickens' novels. He played James Steerforth in the 1999 BBC production of David Copperfield, alongside a pre-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe. Roles in other TV productions followed and in 2006, he played a starring role as Jason Bradley on the ITV medical drama series Vital Signs.

Harry would go on to study at Oxford, joining the Oxford University Dramatic Society. He toured Japan in the society's 2005 summer tour of The Comedy of Errors before graduating.

After being cast in the BBC series Robin Hood in a starring role as Will Scarlett in 2006, Harry made his professional stage debut the following year at the Trafalgar Studios in A Gaggle of Saints. It wasn't long before Harry was appearing in episodes of Doctor Who. There were even whispers he was being considered to play the Doctor himself.

In 2011, Harry was cast as Viserys on the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. He told Reddit: "When I stopped reading the book, and seeing him through his sister's eyes, I realized what a difficult life this kid must've had. And understood that even though he was fairly extreme, he had a lot to be grumpy about." In the same year, Harry was cast in the BBC mini-series of Great Expectations, based on the book of the same name written by Harry's ancestor Charles Dickens. Harry did everything he could to prepare for the role. "Before shooting Great Expectations, I went to Barnard's Inn, where Pip and Herbert live, and Little Britain, where Jaggers is based. You realize Dickens's London is really solid, not some made-up magical kingdom," he said in an interview with the Evening Standard.

He has also appeared in starring roles in the series Marcella and Manhattan. In 2016, Harry depicting real-life World War II war hero Adolf Opálka in Anthropoid. Opálka was a member of Operation Anthropoid, a mission to assassinate top Nazi General Reinhard Heydrich. Most recently he returned to the big screen in the drama The Wife(2018) alongside Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce.

Harry has dated fellow actor Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whom he met while filming Vital Signs in 2006, but the pair split in 2012. Harry likes to keep his private life private, steering clear of social media.

Filmography:

The Wife (2018)
Anthropoid (2016)
The Show (2015)
The Theory of Everything (2014)
The Riot Club (2014)
Big Significant Things (2014)
Jane Eyre (2011)
The Iron Lady (2011)