John Simm - Career

Career

Independently of his acting, throughout the 1990s, Simm was a founding member, songwriter and guitarist with the rock band Magic Alex (named after the Beatles self-styled electronics wizard "Magic Alex" Mardas). The group played support on two British tours with Echo & the Bunnymen. Plus, Simm plays guitar on the album Slideling, by his friend Echo & the Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch. Simm also played lead guitar on a few of McCulloch's solo live shows, including one at Wembley arena as main support to Coldplay. Magic Alex released one album, Dated and Sexist, before splitting in 2005.

Simm made his professional acting debut in 1992 with the role of Joby Johnson in an episode of the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey (there had been an earlier part in the BBC drama Between the Lines where Simm was in one scene as PC Witty, but the scene was cut). There then followed a variety of roles during which time he honed his craft in front of the camera, including a psycho in The Bill, a lovestruck schoolboy in Heartbeat, and a drugged up burglar in The Locksmith. He also made two series of the BBC sitcom Men of the World, playing the lead role of Kendle Bains opposite David Threlfall. His next project saw him take the role of Gary Kingston, a deluded murderer, in Chiller.

In 1995, Simm played the troubled teenager Bill Preece in the "Best Boys" episodes of the acclaimed ITV police drama, Cracker, opposite Robbie Coltrane. This is considered his breakthrough role. The series was created by Jimmy McGovern but Simm's episode was written by producer Paul Abbott. He also made his feature film debut in Boston Kickout beating Dennis Hopper to the Best Actor award at the Valencia Film Festival. In 1996, he made his professional stage debut in the Simon Bent play Goldhawk Road at the Bush Theatre, directed by Paul Miller. In 1997, he won the lead role of Danny Kavanagh in the first series of The Lakes, a BBC series written by Jimmy McGovern. In 1999, he starred in the second series of The Lakes as well as appearing as Jip in the award-winning cult clubbing film Human Traffic and Michael Winterbottom's acclaimed Wonderland.

In 2000, he starred in the opening episode of the BBC drama Clocking Off, written by Paul Abbott, with whom he would work again in 2002, when he starred as 'Cal McCaffrey' in the multi award-winning political thriller series State of Play. Both these series also feature Philip Glenister, with whom he would later star in Life on Mars and Mad Dogs. Simm also played the lead role of loan shark John Parlour in Tony Marchant's Never Never for Channel 4. In 2001, he played Oz in a Caleb Lindsay film, Understanding Jane.

In 2002, Simm featured in another Michael Winterbottom film, 24 Hour Party People, as New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. At a live concert in Finsbury Park that same year, Simm sang the Joy Division song "Digital" onstage with New Order (a few years later, he would be chosen by the band to induct Joy Division/New Order into the rock and roll hall of fame). It was also this year that he played Raskolnikov in the BBC adaptation of Crime and Punishment adapted by Tony Marchant. Marchant also wrote The Knight's Tale, one of a series of modern reworkings of The Canterbury Tales, in which Simm played Ace opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor and Keeley Hawes. Later that year Simm starred opposite Christina Ricci and John Hurt in the film Miranda.

In 2004, he played the researcher and charity investigator Daniel Appleton in the BAFTA award-winning Channel 4 drama Sex Traffic. This hard-hitting two-parter followed the plight of two young Moldovan sisters sold into sexual slavery. After reuniting with Shaun Parkes in Howard Davies' production of Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange, in which he played Dr Bruce Flaherty opposite Brian Cox, Simm starred as Detective Inspector Sam Tyler in the 2006 BBC series Life on Mars playing a police officer apparently sent back in time to 1973. The show won the Pioneer Audience Award for Best Programme at the 2007 BAFTA TV Awards, Simm was nominated but lost out on the award for Best Actor. He left after the second series, feeling that he had taken the role as far as he could.

His next project, in March 2007, was The Yellow House for Channel 4, a biographical drama produced by Talkback Thames, based on the book of the same name by Martin Gayford about the turbulent relationship of artists Vincent van Gogh (Simm) and Paul Gauguin (John Lynch). In the same year, Simm also returned to the theatre as the title character in Paul Miller's acclaimed Bush Theatre staging of Simon Bent's version of Elling, a comedy about two men just out of psychiatric hospital adjusting to 'normal life' and to each other. Following positive press reviews and an extended, sell-out run, the production was transferred to the Trafalgar Studios 1 in July 2007 and Simm was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance.

In 2007, Simm was chosen by Russell T Davies to play the Master, the nemesis of The Doctor in the long-running BBC series Doctor Who. He appeared in the final three episodes of series three: "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords". He reprised that role in the 2009 "The End of Time" two-part special. In 2008, Simm played Edward Sexby in The Devil's Whore, a four-part English Civil War epic for Channel 4. Shot on location in South Africa, the drama also features Dominic West as Oliver Cromwell and Andrea Riseborough in the title role. He performed at The Royal Variety Performance with Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller, and starred in the film Skellig, with Tim Roth and Kelly Macdonald, broadcast on Sky1 in April 2009.

Simm became involved in an ongoing project with director Michael Winterbottom called "Everyday", to be filmed in real time over five years. He returned to the west end stage in Autumn of 2009 to critical acclaim, starring opposite Ian Hart, Lucy Cohu and Kerry Fox in the Andrew Bovell play Speaking in Tongues, at the Duke of York's theatre. In September 2010 John Simm played Hamlet at the Sheffield Crucible The production was a sellout and broke box office records for the Theatre.

In 2011, Simm starred in Mad Dogs on Sky1. Simm plays Baxter in a project that reunited him with Philip Glenister and Marc Warren along with Max Beesley and Ben Chaplin. Mad Dogs became a critical and ratings success and received a BAFTA nomination for best drama serial, and a second and third series were commissioned. Mad Dogs 2 was shot in Mallorca and Ibiza in late 2011, and appeared on Sky 1 in January 2012, the same time as Mad Dogs 3 was being shot in South Africa. On BBC One in May 2011, Simm starred as Tom Rondstadt in Exile. His performance earned him his second BAFTA nomination for best actor.

From 17 May to 9 June 2012, Simm starred as Jerry in a revival of Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Crucible Theatre, alongside Ruth Gemmell and Colin Tierney.

He is currently filming The Village, a 6 part BBC drama by Peter Moffat which begins in 1912 and spans a hundred years, Simm plays "John Middleton".

The Michael Winterbottom film (his 3rd with Simm) "Everyday" premiered at the Toronto film festival in Sept 2012, and is in competition at this years London film festival.