Andrew Tiernan

Andrew Tiernan began acting with the Birmingham Youth Theatre and moved to London in 1984 to study a three-year Diploma in Acting at the Drama Centre London. 

His theatre work has included Joe Penhall's The Bullet at the Donmar Warehouse, and a long-term collaboration with the Tony-nominated director Wilson Milam, including Ché Walker's Flesh Wound at the Royal Court Theatre and two critically acclaimed productions of Sam Shepard plays; A Lie of the Mind at the Donmar Warehouse and True West at the Bristol Old Vic. 

In 2008, Tiernan returned to the theatre in Dorota Maslowska's "A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians" at the Soho Theatre.

Tiernan played Piers Gaveston in Derek Jarman's controversial film of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II in 1991, after appearing in Lynda La Plante's award-winning drama Prime Suspect. In the same year, he went on to star as Orlando and Oliver in Christine Edzard's version of Shakespeare's As You Like It playing alongside actors James Fox and Cyril Cusack.

He played Szalas in Roman Polanski's film The Pianist. He has also worked with Antonia Bird on a number of improvisational film productions, including Safe (Bafta - Best single drama), Face, Rehab and Spooks.

He appeared at Captain Martin Stone in Marko Mäkilaakso's Stone's War. In 2009 he completed work on two films, both reuniting him with directors he had previously worked with. The first was Mr. Nice with director Bernard Rose in which Tiernan plays Alan Marcuson. The second was Freight with director Stuart St. Paul.

In 1993, Tiernan appeared in the series Cracker in the episode "To Say I Love You". In 1998, in the British TV series Hornblower, he played Bunting in the second episode, "The Examination For Lieutenant". Other credits in television include Victor Carroon in The Quatermass Experiment and Kim Trent in Life on Mars. In 2005, he played Ben Jonson in A Waste of Shame, a William Shakespeare biopic presented as part of the BBC's ShakespeaRe-Told series.