David Thewlis
David Wheeler (born 20 March 1963), better known as David Thewlis, is an English actor and filmmaker. He has won one Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and received nominations for two BAFTA Awards, one Golden Globe Award, one Primetime Emmy Award, and one Screen Actors Guild Award. Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit (1987) and had his breakthrough with roles in the Mike Leigh films Life Is Sweet (1990) and Naked (1993), winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for the latter.
Also recorded as David Wheeler
David Thewlis

David_Thewlis_at_San_Sebastian_Filmfestival_2008.jpg: Andreas Tai derivative work: RanZag (talk) · David_Thewlis_at_San_Sebastian_Filmfestival_2008.jpg · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Born
- 1963. · Blackpool.
- Nationality
- United Kingdom.
- Occupation
- actor and film director.
- Fields
- Shakespearean comedy.
- Education
- Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Highfield Leadership Academy.
- Languages
- English.
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
VALÉORINE documentary reading
Documentary summary
David Wheeler (born 20 March 1963), better known as David Thewlis, is an English actor and filmmaker. He has won one Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and received nominations for two BAFTA Awards, one Golden Globe Award, one Primetime Emmy Award, and one Screen Actors Guild Award. Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit (1987) and had his breakthrough with roles in the Mike Leigh films Life Is Sweet (1990) and Naked (1993), winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for the latter.
Admitted source layer · organised and presented by VALÉORINE
Reference Check
Propose documentary evidence for David Thewlis. A contribution is never written directly as fact: identity, source, rights and evidence gates still decide.
Sign in to contribute
World of VALÉORINE
Documentary connections
Only confirmed graph relationships appear here. Images are shown only when their identity and reuse rights both pass the documentary gate.
Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q212790 · wikipedia · David Thewlis
In this article
Early life
Early life
He appeared in films such as Black Beauty (1994), Restoration (1995), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Dragonheart (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998), Gangster No. 1 (2000), and as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter franchise (2004–2011). Other film roles include Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), War Horse (2011), The Theory of Everything (2014), Anomalisa (2015), Wonder Woman (2017), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020), and Enola Holmes 2 (2022). Thewlis's most notable television roles include V. Varga in the third season of FX's Fargo (2017), the voice of the Shame Wizard in the Netflix animated sitcoms Big Mouth (2017–2025) and Human Resources (2022–2023), Christopher Edwards in the HBO miniseries Landscapers (2021), John Dee in the Netflix drama series The Sandman (2022), and Fagin in the Disney+ TV series The Artful Dodger (2023). His performance in Fargo earned him nominations for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Critics' Choice Award.
Thewlis was born David Wheeler in Blackpool on 20 March 1963, the middle child of Maureen (née Thewlis) and Alec Raymond Wheeler. His parents ran a toy and wallpaper shop. As a teenager, he played in a rock band called QED and played lead guitar with a punk rock band called Door 66. He was educated at Highfield High School in Blackpool's Marton area. He later joined London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1984.
Acting
Acting
Wheeler decided to use his mother's maiden name, Thewlis, for his stage name after attempting to register with the actors' union and discovering that his birth name, David Wheeler, was already used by someone else. His first professional role after doing so was in the play Buddy Holly at the Regal in Greenwich and in a commercial for Kellogg's Bran Flakes. In theatre, Thewlis has starred in Sam Mendes' The Sea at the Royal National Theatre, Max Stafford-Clark's Ice Cream at the Royal Court Theatre, The Ruffian on the Stairs/The Woolley at Farnham, and The Lady and the Clarinet at the King's Head Theatre. He went on to play small roles in high-profile series such as BBC's Only Fools and Horses (1985), and The Singing Detective (1986), before being offered a more significant part in Alan Clarke's Road, and in the ITV sitcom Valentine Park (1987). That same year, Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit. His first big-screen leading role was opposite Clive Owen in Vroom, directed by Beeban Kidron in 1988, and he starred in Paul Greengrass's anti-Falkland War drama Resurrected (1989), playing a presumed-dead soldier who returns to Britain. He collaborated with Mike Leigh on Life Is Sweet (1990), in which he played Jane Horrocks' character's lover. He continued playing low-key supporting roles in films such as Damage (1992), directed by Louis Malle, and the David Hugh Jones directed film The Trial (1993). Thewlis's breakout role was in the film Naked (1993), directed by Mike Leigh, as the main character Johnny, a homeless, highly intelligent, embittered, rambling street philosopher, for which Thewlis was named Best Actor by the National Society of Film Critics, the London Film Critics Circle, the Evening Standard, the New York Film Critics' Circle and the Cannes Film Festival. That same year, he appeared on television as a sexual predator named James Jackson opposite Helen Mirren and Ciarán Hinds in Prime Suspect 3. During the 1990s, Thewlis appeared in a variety of films, mostly fantasy and period pieces, including Restoration (1995), Black Beauty (1994), Total Eclipse (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Dragonheart (1996), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997), opposite Brad Pitt. He was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, for Divorcing Jack (1998), and played Clov in a television film of Samuel Beckett's Endgame (2000). Notable appearances included Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged (1998), the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski (1998), and opposite Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell in Paul McGuigan's Gangster No. 1 (2000). Thewlis auditioned for the role of Quirinus Quirrell in the Chris Columbus directed film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but the part went to Ian Hart. Despite missing out on the first film, he was cast in 2004 as Professor Remus Lupin in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He did not have to audition as he was director Alfonso Cuarón's first choice for the role. Thewlis reprised the role in four other films in the series. Thewlis appeared as an SS Commandant of a Nazi death camp and father of the main character in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was well received. His other credits include Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Terrence Malick's The New World (2005), and The Omen (2006). Thewlis played Dr Michael Aris, husband of Aung San Suu Kyi, with Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh as Suu Kyi, in the biopic The Lady (2011), directed by Luc Besson. In 2012, he received an International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera Award. In the same year, he played in Separate We Come, Separate We Go, directed by Bonnie Wright. In June 2015, Thewlis was reported to be filming scenes for a Donald Crowhurst biopic, The Mercy, on the beach at Teignmouth, Devon, playing Donald Crowhurst's press agent, Rodney Hallworth, while Colin Firth would play Donald Crowhurst. He starred in Regression, a thriller released in autumn 2015. In September 2015, Thewlis starred as Inspector Goole in Helen Edmundson's BBC TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls. In October 2015, he played King Duncan in the film Macbeth (2015). Thewlis portrayed Ares in Wonder Woman (2017), the DC Comics film featuring the character Wonder Woman. He briefly reprised his role as Ares in Justice League (2017). That same year, he appeared as V. M. Varga, the main antagonist of the third season of Fargo. His performance was critically acclaimed, and earned him nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award, Critics' Choice Television Award and Golden Globe Award as a supporting actor. He has voiced the Shame Wizard in the Netflix animated sitcom Big Mouth (2017–2025), and its spin-off Human Resources (2022–2023). Thewlis starred in the Netflix film I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020), the HBO miniseries Landscapers (2021), the Netflix drama series The Sandman (2022), the Netflix film Enola Holmes 2 (2022), and the animated film The Amazing Maurice (2022). In 2023, he played Fagin in The Artful Dodger, and in 2024, Hades in Kaos.
Writing
Writing
Thewlis's black comedy novel set in the art world, The Late Hector Kipling, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007. His second book, Shooting Martha, was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2021.
Personal life
Personal life
Thewlis married Welsh director and actress Sara Sugarman in 1992 and they divorced in 1994. He later dated English actress Kate Hardie for three years. He began a relationship with English actress Anna Friel in 2000, and they had a daughter in 2005 before they split up in 2010. Thewlis married French designer and artist Hermine Poitou on 6 August 2016. They live in Sunningdale.

David Thewlis at San Sebastian Filmfestival 2008 presenting "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" directed by Mark Herman
Andreas Tai
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
2003
cheeky 2003 DVD capture David thewlis (2003) is digitised and catalogued by Internet Archive.
2003
cheeky 2003 DVD capture David thewlis digitised by Internet Archive.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Sunningdale.
Residences
Blackpool.
Birth place
Filmmaking
Thewlis directed Hello, Hello, Hello in 1995, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film at the 49th British Academy Film Awards. He also wrote, directed and starred in the feature Cheeky (2003).
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “David Thewlis”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q212790: David Thewlis
Reputable secondary · Wikimedia Foundation
scholarly publication
- Thewlis, David (1963–), Journeys of Desire, 2006
Scholarly · Crossref registry · 2006
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Larman, Alexander. Thewlis, David (1963-). Screenonline. British Film Institute.
- 2.Thewlis, David 1963–. Encyclopedia.com.
- 3.David Thewlis. Contactmusic.com.
- 4.Moffitt, Dominic. Lancs Harry Potter star who started off as Only Fools and Horses extra. LancsLive. Reach plc. 14 March 2021.
- 5.Grice, Elizabeth. Anna has changed me for the better. The Telegraph. 4 May 2005.
- 6.David Thewlis says he cried over The Lady script. BBC News. 2011-12-19.
- 7.David Thewlis. Bluscreens.
- 8.David Thewlis Credits. tvguide.com.
- 9.David Thewlis Bio. tvguide.com.
- 10.Morris, Clint. Interview: David Thewlis. Movie Hole. 9 June 2004.
- 11.PICTURES: Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz on a Teignmouth film set.
- 12.Mendelson, Scott. Gal Gadot Releases First 'Wonder Woman' Image While Warner Bros. Announces The Cast. Forbes.
- 13.Osborn, Alex. Wonder Woman: Harry Potter Actor David Thewlis Reportedly Cast as Villain Ares. IGN. 19 February 2017.
- 14.Miller, Liz Shannon. 'Fargo': David Thewlis on the Details and Delight of Playing a Bad Guy Who's 'Out and Out Foul'. Indiewire. Penske Media Corporation. 26 May 2017.
- 15.Tallerica, Brian. Fargo Season-Finale Recap: The Great American Experiment. Vulture.com. New York Media. 21 June 2017.
- 16.Ryan, Maureen. TV Review: Fargo Season 3 on FX. Variety. Penske Media Corporation. 13 April 2017.
- 17.British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Awards Search Results: Thewlis.
- 18.Rooney, David. Cheeky. Variety. 2003-09-18.
- 19.Thewlis, David. The Late Hector Kipling: A Novel. Simon & Schuster. 2007. 978-1-4165-4121-9.
- 20.Thewlis, David. Shooting Martha. Orion. 5 August 2021. 9781474621564.
- 21.Seddon, Aimee. David Thewlis: to celebrate the Blackpool actor's birthday we explore his life story so far. Blackpool Gazette. 2024-03-20.
- 22.Zeitchik, Steven. David Thewlis is the 'Anonymous' actor who's everywhere. Los Angeles Times. 2012-01-13.
- 23.MacDonald, Marianne. Post-natal confession. The Daily Telegraph. 26 September 2005.
- 24.Thewlis, David. Gracie is 16 today. Happy Birthday my cheeky, charming and beautiful angel. What can I say? Your voice is from heaven, you're funnier than fun and you cheat at Uno. Oh. and I love you. 2021-07-09.
- 25.Ayres, Tom. Friel, Thewlis split after nine years. Digital Spy. 2010-12-14.
- 26.David Thewlis: It does get to you, spending more waking hours as a character than oneself. The Guardian. 25 July 2021.
- 27.Thewlis, David. Five years ago today. Why would I ever keep such happiness a secret?. 2021-08-06.
- 28.Williams, Zoe. David Thewlis on new show Landscapers and the misogyny of Naked: 'I find it much tougher to watch today'. The Guardian. 2021-12-07.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
scholarly publication
Thewlis, David (1963–), Journeys of Desire, 2006Crossref registry
Institutional witnessreference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q212790: David ThewlisWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Film memorabilia
37,604 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
- David SylvesterPerson
- David T. FriendlyPerson
- David TendlarPerson
- David ThackerPerson
- David ThomsonPerson
- David ThorntonPerson
- David ThrelfallPerson
- David TomaszewskiPerson
Best supported in this field
For owners
Own a work by David Thewlis?
A specialist will read what you send and tell you what the house can establish, what it cannot, and whether the object is suited to sale. There is no charge and no obligation. The object stays with you throughout; nothing is shipped to us unless it is arranged in writing beforehand.