Peter Capaldi

Peter Capaldi  is an Academy Award and BAFTA award winning Scottish actor and film director. In 1995, his short film Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life won the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film. As an actor, he played Oldsen in Local Hero, John Frobisher in Torchwood and political spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the British TV comedy series The Thick of It and the affiliated feature film In the Loop. He also portrayed Balthazar, one of the Magi, in the 2010 BBC adaptation of The Nativity.

Capaldi was born in Glasgow. His mother's family was from Killeshandra, County Cavan, Ireland, and his father's family is from Picinisco, Italy. Capaldi was educated at St Teresa's Primary School in the city's Possilpark district, St Matthew's Primary School in Bishopbriggs^[2] and at St Ninian's High School, Kirkintilloch, before attending the Glasgow School of Art.

Capaldi is best known for his portrayal of spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the BBC sitcom The Thick of It, written by fellow Scottish-Italian Armando Iannucci. Tucker is said to be largely if loosely based upon Tony Blair's right-hand man Alastair Campbell. In 2006, Capaldi was nominated for the BAFTA and RTS Best Comedy Actor Awards. He won the 2010 BAFTA Television Award for Male Performance in a Comedy Role. He also won the 2010 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actor. A movie spin-off from The Thick of It titled In the Loop was released in 2009.

Capaldi has appeared in over forty films and television programmes since his appearance as Danny Oldsen in Local Hero (1983). He had a lead role in Ken Russell's The Lair of the White Worm (1988) and in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988). He featured as Ozzy in a 1985 episode of Minder titled Life in the Fast Food Lane, in which he helped Arthur Daley shift dodgy car phones that caused other radio technology nearby to malfunction.

In 1995 Capaldi won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, which was tied with fellow nominee Trevor thus leading to both films being announced as joint winners. He also wrote Soft Top, Hard Shoulder (winner of the audience award at the London Film Festival) and wrote and directed Strictly Sinatra.

He played Chief Petty Officer Grieves in the BBC Radio Ministry of Defence Comedy Our Brave Boys. His first starring role on television was as Luke Wakefield, a closet gay man who imagines he has witnessed a crime, in the BBC drama series Mr Wakefield's Crusade.

Capaldi played fictional Songs of Praise producer Tristan Campbell in two episodes of the sitcom Vicar of Dibley and a transvestite in ITV's Prime Suspect 3. In Channel 4's 1999 series "Psychos", he played a mathematician with bipolar disorder.^[8] He made an appearance in the hit sitcom Peep Show as a university professor, starred in Aftersun with Sarah Parish, and played a prime suspect in the 2007 series of Waking the Dead. In the Neil Gaiman gothic fantasy Neverwhere he portrayed the Angel Islington.

In 2007 Capaldi appeared as Mark Jenkins (Sid Jenkins' dad) in the E4 teen comedy/drama Skins where he returned for a second series in 2008 only to be killed off in the 3rd episode, and as characters in theMidsomer Murders episode "Death in Chorus" and ITV1's Fallen Angel. He also appeared in the British Comedy film Magicians. He played a fictional version of Caecilius in "The Fires of Pompeii", a 2008 episode Doctor Who. He returned to the Doctor Who franchise in 2009, playing civil servant John Frobisher in the third series of Torchwood. He also appeared as King Charles I in the Channel 4 series The Devil's Whore, screened in 2008.

He provided a voice for the animated feature for Haunted Hogmanay by Kolik Films in 2006.

Capaldi directs the BBC Four sitcom Getting On, written by and starring Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, one episode of which he appeared in as a doctor. Later that same year he wrote and presented A Portrait of Scotland, a documentary about 500 years history of Scottish portrait painting.

Capaldi also played Balthazar, one of the Magi, in the 2010 BBC adaptation of The Nativity.

Capaldi is also a successful audio book narrator. His many titles include several of the works of Iain Banks. He starred as Rory in the TV version of Banks' The Crow Road.

In November 2011 Capaldi will be playing Professor Marcus in The Ladykillers at the Liverpool Playhouse and The Gielgud Theatre, London.

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