Background

Donald Sumpter was born on February 13, 1943, in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, England.

Career

Like many other English actors, Donald Sumpter began his career on stage. He first captured the audience’s attention in a Nottingham Playhouse production of ‘Julius Caesar’ (1966). In 1967, he made his TV debut in an episode of ‘Softly Softly’. In 1968, after acting in an episode of ‘Sanctuary’, Sumpter made his first movie appearance in the adventure movie ‘The Lost Continent’ and followed it with the short film ‘The Window Cleaner’. In the next few years, he struggled to land substantial roles in movies.

In the ensuing years, he became a regular face on TV. This can be attributed to his praiseworthy performances in TV series like ‘Special Project Air’ and ‘The First Churchills’ in 1969 and ‘The Wednesday Play’ (1966-70). Donald Sumpter’s first major break on TV came in ‘Doctor Who’. He portrayed the characters of Enrico Casali and Commander Ridgeway from 1968 to 1972 in several episodes of the British sci-fi series. He also had small roles in movies like ‘Night After Night After Night’ (1969) and ‘Bleak Moments’ (1971), and a recurring role in the series ‘Hadleigh’ (1973).

Donald Sumpter continued to appear on several critically acclaimed TV shows like ‘The Fight Against Slavery’ (1975) and ‘The Children of the New Forest’ (1977). In 1977, he was cast in the lead role of serial killer Dennis Nielsen in the movie ‘The Black Panther’. The movie generated positive response from the critics and established him as a leading star. The film ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’ (1979) also earned him praise for his performance. He then went on to have recurring roles in top-rated TV shows like ‘The Rose Medallion’ (1981), ‘The Brack Report’ (1982), and ‘No Excuses’ (1983). He also co-starred in the movie ‘Curse of the Pink Panther’ (1983); the movie was one of the year’s biggest critical and commercial failures!

In 1984, he returned to the stage with a role in the play ‘An Honorable Trade’. Then in 1985, Donald Sumpter was seen in the BBC series ‘Masterpiece Theatre: Bleak House’. He followed that up with equally noteworthy performances in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s productions of ‘Twelfth Night’ in 1987 and 1988. His best performances during the period were in the movie ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead’ (1990) and the series ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ (1992).

His string of successes continued with the TV series ‘The Queen’s Nose’ (1995-2000) and ‘Bombay Blue’ (1997), and the TV movie ‘The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby’ (2001). Donald Sumpter was then cast as Tim Donohue in ‘The Constant Gardener’ (2005). It was a commercial success, grossing more than US $82 million at the box office. It was also nominated for four ‘Academy Awards’ and ten ‘BAFTA Awards.’

In the 2000s, he gave captivating performances in shows like ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ (2008), ‘Being Human’ (2009-10), and ‘Black Mirror’ (2011). In 2011, he co-starred in the crime-thriller ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. The blockbuster movie made more than US $232.6 million at the box office. The same year, he also landed his most famous role to date. He was cast as Maester Luwin in the HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011-12). In 2015, he was seen in the film ‘In the Heart of the Sea’ and the TV series ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Jekyll and Hyde’. His more recent notable roles have been in the projects ‘Peaky Blinders’ (2017), ‘Les Misérables’ (2018), and ‘Chernobyl’ (2019).

Achievements

• 

  Donald Sumpter is particularly renowned for his portrayal of Maester Luwin in the TV series ‘Game of Thrones’. With a career spanning more than five decades, he has created a rich legacy both on TV and in movies. Some of his best movies are ‘The Black Panther’, ‘Richard III’, ‘The Constant Gardener’, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, and ‘In the Heart of the Sea’. The longevity of his career can be attributed to his ability to pull off both comedic and dramatic roles with the same élan.
  
  

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Curse Of The Pink Panther

    (Inspector Clouseau is missing and the Pink Panther (David...)

    1983
  • Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

    (In this cleverly inspired twist on William Shakespeare's ...)

    1990
  • Sunday Bloody Sunday

    (Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch pool their considerable ta...)

    1971
  • The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

    (Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) acce...)

    2011
  • Being Human

    (In five distinct yet cleverly interlocked roles, Williams...)

    1993
  • In the Heart of the Sea

    (In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex...)

    2015
  • Bleak Moments

    (Moments from the uncompromisingly bleak existence of a se...)

    1971
  • The Man Who Invented Christmas

    (The Man Who Invented Christmas tells the magical journey ...)

    2017
  • Eastern Promises

    (A ruthless and mysterious enforcer for a Russian crime fa...)

    2007
  • The Constant Gardener

    (Ralph Fiennes stars as Kenya-based English diplomat Justi...)

    2005
  • Watch K-19: The Widow Maker

    (When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its...)

    2002
  • Enigma

    (A young genius frantically races against time to crack an...)

    2001
  • The Walking Stick

    (A young woman's highly ordered and structured life is tur...)

    1970
  • Lost Continent

    (An atomic-powered rocket fired from White Sands Missile B...)

    1968
  • Richard III

    (The classic Shakespearean play about a murderously schemi...)

    1995
  • The Black Panther

    (A gung-ho ex-military man pursues a secret life of crime,...)

    1977
  • Meetings with Remarkable Men

    (Meetings with Remarkable Men is the story of G. I. Gurdji...)

    1979

• TV series

  • Game of Thrones

    (Nine noble families fight for control over the mythical l...)

    2013
  • Chernobyl

    (This five-part miniseries dramatizes the story of the 198...)

    2019

Views

Quotations: "When I've written episodes of 'Doctor Who', when it comes to the monster chasing somebody, it's the Doctor and the companion, running down the corridor, being chased by a guy with a stick and a tennis ball on the end. Whereas, when I see the rushes of 'Being Human', we're actually looking at the werewolf, and it just looks real."

"The bedrock of 'Being Human' has to be characters. I would hope that even if suddenly we had a huge budget per episode, the foundation of the show, and the thing that actually makes it what it is, is character."

"The way they do things in the U.S., if you have a show, you'll option your actors for five, six or seven seasons. In the U.K., we just don't have the financing to be able to do that."

Personality

Donald Sumpter is a very private person.

Physical Characteristics: Height - 5ft 8 (172.7 cm)

Hair color - gray

Eye color - brown

Interests

• Writers

  William Shakespear

Connections

Donald Sumpter is an extremely private person and no verified information about his marital status is available.

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