Stephen Mangan
Overview
 
Stephen Mangan is an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, best known for his roles as Guy Secretan
Guy Secretan
Guy Secretan is a character in the British sitcom Green Wing, played by Stephen Mangan. In Channel 4's The World's Greatest Comedy Characters, Guy was voted 34th.- History :...

 in the television series Green Wing
Green Wing
Green Wing is a British sitcom set in the fictional East Hampton Hospital. It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony, led by Victoria Pile, and stars Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt....

, Dan Moody in I'm Alan Partridge
I'm Alan Partridge
I'm Alan Partridge is a BBC situation comedy starring Steve Coogan, of which two series of six episodes each were produced — the first in 1997 and the second in 2002...

and as Holistic Detective Dirk Gently
Dirk Gently
Dirk Gently is a fictional character created by Douglas Adams and featured in the books Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul...

 in the 2010 BBC adaptation of Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

' book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a humorous fantasy detective novel by Douglas Adams, first published in 1987. It is described by "the author" on its cover as a "thumping good detective-ghost-horror-who dunnit-time travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic".The book was followed by a sequel,...

, as well as Sean Lincoln in Episodes
Episodes (TV series)
Episodes is a British/American television sitcom serial created by David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik and produced by Hat Trick Productions. It premiered on Showtime on January 9, 2011 at 9:30 pm and began airing on BBC Two on 10 January 2011 at 10 pm...

.
Mangan was born in Winchmore Hill
Winchmore Hill
Winchmore Hill is a district in the Borough of Enfield, North London, in the N21 postal district.- Location :With the Winchmore Hill conservation area as a focal point, Winchmore Hill is a ward of Enfield borough, bounded on the east by Green Lanes , Barrowell Green, Firs Lane and Fords Grove, and...

, North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...

 to Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 Roman Catholic parents; he has two sisters, Anita and Lisa.
Mangan was educated at two independent school
Independent school
An independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...

s for boys: at Lochinver House School
Lochinver House School
Lochinver House School is a preparatory independent school for boys aged between 4 and 13 located in the town of Potters Bar, in Hertfordshire in England.- History :...

, in the town of Potters Bar
Potters Bar
Potters Bar is a town in the Hertsmere borough of Hertfordshire, England, located north of Central London. In 2001 it had a population of 21,618....

 in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

 and Haileybury and Imperial Service College
Haileybury and Imperial Service College
Haileybury and Imperial Service College, , is a prestigious British independent school founded in 1862. The school is located at Hertford Heath, near Hertford, from central London, on of parkland occupied until 1858 by the East India College...

 (now co-educational), a famous boarding school in the village of Hertford Heath
Hertford Heath
Hertford Heath is a small village and civil parish near the county town of Hertford in Hertfordshire, England.-Geography:It is located on a heath above the River Lea valley, on its south side...

 (also in Hertfordshire), in the same year as Dom Joly
Dom Joly
Dominic John Romulus "Dom" Joly is a British television comedian and journalist. He came to note as the star of Trigger Happy TV, a hidden camera show that was sold to over seventy countries worldwide...

.
Quotations

He walks a fine line. Obviously he is trying to be funny but a lot of the humour is because he is such a wally. You are laughing at him. When we filmed the first series, I expected to be regularly punched in the face by strangers in the street because he can be quite arrogant, although I like to call it self-confidence! I think he is misunderstood.

talking about what he thinks of his Green Wing character, Dr. Guy Secretan

I once told Victoria about a girl telling me I reminded her of somebody famous. I always get mistaken for Jerry Seinfeld, Elliott Gould and Pete Sampras so I listed about ten people and she said, no, it's none of them, it's the donkey from Shrek! Now every episode has me being compared to the donkey from Shrek. I'm much more guarded now but I looked at a picture the other day of Camilla Parker Bowles, and her hairstyle and look are exactly like Julian (Rhind-Tutt). So that went in.

But on set it is Stephen Mangan, as the comic-grotesque Dr Guy Secretan, who emerges as the true star. With film roles in Festival and the forthcoming Confetti, it can't be long before he's up there with Coogan and Gervais. The rest of the cast are all straight actors, but Mangan is a brilliant improv performer who pushes the script to the very limit with his constant ad-libbing.

an article in the Independent from March 22 2006.

 
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