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Pete Postlethwaite
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Peter William Postlethwaite OBE (IPA: 'p?s?l?we?t), born 16 February 1946 is an Academy Award-nominated British actor.
lethwaite was born in Warrington England to Mary Geraldine and William Postlethwaite as their third and youngest child. He trained as a teacher, worked as a drama teacher, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Postlethwaite started his career at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher and Julie Walters.
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Peter William Postlethwaite OBE (IPA: 'p?s?l?we?t), born 16 February 1946 is an Academy Award-nominated British actor.
Early life
Postlethwaite was born in Warrington England to Mary Geraldine and William Postlethwaite as their third and youngest child. He trained as a teacher, worked as a drama teacher, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Postlethwaite started his career at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher and Julie Walters. Postlethwaite and Walters were lovers for the latter half of the seventies and lived a ramshackle bedsit life in Soho.
Postlethwaite is a veteran of the Royal Shakespeare Company and other acting troupes.
Career
After routine early appearances in small parts for television programmes such as The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first success came with the film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in In the Name of the Father in 1993. His performance as the mysterious lawyer "Kobayashi" in The Usual Suspects is also well-known, and he later made appearances in several successful films, including Alien³, Amistad, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, and as Friar Lawrence in Baz Lurhmann's Romeo and Juliet. In 2003, he was both the physical and vocal actor for the villain Deeth in Zixx: Level One, a Canadian TV series created by IDT Entertainment.
Also in 2003 he went to Australia, touring a 90-minute one-man play called Scaramouche Jones where he is a clown trying to find out why he is who he is before he dies at midnight. directed by Rupert Goold, who would also direct his Lear in 2008, Postlethwaite played every character. As well as Australia, the play toured Canada, New Zealand and Britain to great acclaim.
Steven Spielberg called Postlethwaite "the best actor in the world" after working with the actor on the The Lost World: Jurassic Park, of which Postlethwaite says: "I'm sure what Spielberg actually said was, 'The thing about Pete is that he thinks he's the best actor in the world.'"
One of his more notable roles was as antagonist Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill in ITV's Sharpe series, which starred Sean Bean. Pete has said that this was one of his favourite roles and that he and Sean played so well off each other because of their mutual love and respect for each other. Bernard Cornwell, the author and creator of the Sharpe series, specifically wrote Hakeswill's character in later novels to reflect Postlewaite's performance as the character in the TV series. Pete also co-starred with Sean Bean in When Saturday Comes.
Postlethwaite next starred in the Liverpool stage production of King Lear in 2008 at the Everyman Theatre, Liverpool and at the Young Vic, London. He appears in the climate change-themed film The Age of Stupid, set for release in February 2009. Having recently installed a wind turbine in his garden, he said was really impressed by the film.
Awards
He was made an OBE in the 2004 New Year's Honours List.
Personal life
He lives in Shropshire, near Bishop's Castle, with his wife Jackie, a former BBC producer. Their two children are Will, a drama student at LAMDA, and school-age daughter Lily.
Postlethwaite was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1990, and had one testicle removed.
Filmography
- Afternoon Off (1979) (TV)
- A Private Function (1984)
- Coast To Coast (1987)
- Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
- Treasure Island (1990) (TV)
- Hamlet (1990)
- The Grass Arena (1991)
- Alien³ (1992)
- Split Second (1992)
- The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
- In the Name of the Father (1993)
- Sharpe's Company (1994) (TV)
- Suite 16 (1994)
- Sharpe's Enemy (1994) (TV)
- Martin Chuzzlewit (1994) (TV)
- The Usual Suspects (1995)
- When Saturday Comes (1996)
- Brassed Off (1996)
- Dragonheart (1996)
- James and the Giant Peach (1996)
- William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996)
- Amistad (1997)
- Bastard (Bandyta) (1997)
- Crimetime (1997)
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
- Among Giants (1998)
- Lost for Words (1999)
- Wayward Son (1999)
- Animal Farm (1999)
- The Divine Ryans (1999)
- Rat (2000)
- The Shipping News (2001)
- Strange Bedfellows (2004)
- Dark Water (2005The Devil's Rejects, Saw II, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, ''The Ring Two, ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, ''xXx: State of the Union, ''Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous...
) - Ĉon Flux (2005)
- The Constant Gardener (2005The Devil's Rejects, Saw II, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, ''The Ring Two, ''Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, ''xXx: State of the Union, ''Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous...
) - The Omen (2006)
- Closing the Ring (2007)
- Liyarn Ngarn(2007)
- Solomon Kane (2008)
- Criminal Justice (2008) (TV)
- The Age of Stupid (2009)
External links
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