Phil Davis (Wikipedia)
Phil Davis is an English actor, writer, and director.
He was born in Highgate, London, and raised in Thurrock, Essex. His father worked for Procter & Gamble in a soap factory and his mother was a hospital dining room supervisor. From the age of eight, he was interested in acting. He attended Ockendon Courts County Secondary School in South Ockendon, Essex, where he was distracted in class but enjoyed school plays. He was also a member of both the National Youth Theatre and Joan Littlewood‘s Theatre Workshop.
In 1977, he was cast in the lead role in the play Gotcha! about an under-achieving student who holds two teachers hostage on his last day at school. Blond haired and slightly built, an early film role was as Chalky, a mod who is knocked off his scooter by a rocker in Quadrophenia (1979). He then landed the role of midshipman Edward “Ned” Young in The Bounty (1984); co-star Daniel Day-Lewis later rated him as one of his greatest inspirations. He began a long association with Mike Leigh with roles including Cyril the motorcycle courier in High Hopes (1988) and as Stanley, the husband of the abortionist in Vera Drake (2004).
He has also made numerous television appearances. More recent roles have seen him mainly cast as disreputable characters, including the mean money lender Smallweed in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House (2005), as Jeff Hope, a murderous cab driver in the first episode of Sherlock (2010), as crime family solicitor Micky Joy in Silk, as Jud, the malevolent servant in Poldark (2015) and as DI Tom Piper in crime drama Black Work. In 2013 he starred as the human incarnation of the devil in the 5th and final series of BBC Three’s Being Human. He also starred alongside Rupert Penry Jones in the TV series Whitechapel. From November 2017 until February 2018, he played Ebenezer Scrooge in David Edgar‘s new adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Davis married actress Eve Matheson in Hackney, London in 2002. They have a daughter, Amy Elisabeth (born 2002). Davis also has a son, Hugo (born 1996), by a previous partner.
