Andrew Tiernan

Andrew James Tiernan (born 30 November 1965) is a British actor and director.

Andrew Tiernan
Born	Andrew James Tiernan (1965-11-30) 30 November 1965 Ladywood, Birmingham, Warwickshire, UK
Occupation	Actor & Director
Years active	1989–present

Biography

Theatre

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 run by Christopher Fettes and Yat Malmgren. 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's 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.

Film

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 then went on to star in the 2001 thriller, Mr In-Between, directed by Paul Sarossy.

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

Tiernan starred in Zack Snyder's 300, an adaptation of the Frank Miller graphic novel, in which he portrayed Ephialtes of Trachis. Filming took place from October 2005 to January 2006 in Montreal. To portray Ephialtes, Tiernan dressed in full body prosthetics which took 10 hours each day to complete. He portrayed the character again in the sequel 300: Rise of an Empire (2014).

He appeared as Captain Martin Stone in Marko Mäkilaakso's Stone's War.

TV

In 1993, Tiernan appeared in the series Cracker in the episode "To Say I Love You". In 1997 played Banquo in the Shakespeare adaptation for BBC (MacBeth on the Estate) alongside James Frain and Susan Vidler. 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, Kim Trent in Life on Mars and Lenny Spearfish in the BBC TV series Jonathan Creek in "The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish" (1999). 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. He appeared in an episode of crime drama Midsomer Murders as Steve Bright, a photography enthusiast who is strangled with his own camera strap and in Dalziel & Pascoe as a lottery winner in the two-part episodes "Fallen Angel". In 2012, he appeared as DS Hunter in BBC's new drama Prisoners' Wives.

Directing

In 2015, Tiernan made his directorial debut with the feature film Dragonfly, followed in 2017 by UK18, and in 2019 by Break Clause.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Edward II	Piers Gaveston
	Prime Suspect	DC Rosper
1992	The Guilty	Leo
	As you like it	Orlando/Oliver
	Prime Suspect 2	DC Rosper
1993	Cracker	Sean Kerrigan
	The Trial	Berthold
1994	Middlemarch	Dagley
	Being Human	Cyprion's Man
	Interview with the Vampire	Paris Vampire
1995	Taggart	John Campbell	Black Orchid
	Two Deaths	Captain Jorgu
1996	The Sculptress	Gary O'Brien
	Ellington	Eddie Gilmour	Man of Honour
1997	Snow White: A Tale of Terror	Scar
	Face	Chris
	Playing God	Cyril
	Macbeth on The Estate	Banquo	BBC TV film
1998	The Scarlet Tunic	Muller
	Hornblower	Bunting
1999	The Criminal	Harris
	Jonathan Creek	Lenny Spearfish -	The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish
2000	Small Time Obsession	Mr Page
	Heartbeat	Ray Nixon	The Seven Year Itch
2001	Left Turn	John	Short
	In a Land of Plenty	Gary
	Hawk	Freddie	TV movie
	Mr In-Between	Andy
	The Bunker	LCpl Schenke
2002	The Pianist	Szalas
	The Red Siren	Koesler
2003	Rehab	Dean	TV movie
2004	Whose Baby?	Dave
	Waking the Dead	Don Keech	Anger Management
2005	The Quatermass Experiment	Victor Carroon
	The Rotters' Club	Roy Slater
	Spooks	Forster
	A Waste of Shame: The Mystery of Shakespeare and his Sonnets	Ben Jonson	TV movie
2006	Snuff-Movie	constable Fred
	Life on Mars	Kim Trent
	Dalziel and Pascoe	Jake McNally	"Fallen Angel"
	300	Ephialtes
2007	Midsomer Murders	Steve Bright	Picture of Innocence
2008	Heroes and Villains	Crixus	Spartacus
	Stone's War	Captain Stone
	New Tricks	Sgt Major Sharratt	Mad Dogs
	Survivors	Gavin
2009	Casualty	O'Neill	TV series
	Harvest	Blue
	Murderland	Whitaker
	The Bill	Craig Middleton
2010	Mr Nice	Alan Marcuson
	Luther	Richard Henley
	Whitechapel II	Steven Dukes
2011	Doctor Who	Purcell	Night Terrors
	Injustice	Michael Bankes
2012	Prisoners' Wives	DS Hunter
	Merlin	Osgar
2013	Foyle's War	Geoffrey Helliwell	Sunflowers
	Dragonfly	DS Blake
2014	300: Rise of an Empire	Ephialtes
	Dark Souls II	Chancellor Wellager (voice)	Video game
	Common	Pete O'Shea
	Autómata	Manager
	The Great Fire	Vincent
	The Messenger	Dad
2015	Silent Witness	DCI John McLeod	"Falling Angels" (2 parts)
	Code of a Killer	Geoff Taylor
	No Offence	Michael Docherty
2016	Moving On	Rob
2017	Safe House	Roger Lane
	Us and Them	Tommy
	Bounty Hunters	Smith
2018	Marcella (series 2)	Nigel Stafford
2019	Death in Paradise (series 8)	Paul Raynor
2019	Burning Men	Mad Dad
2021	2003	Phil	Short Film
	Innocent (series 2)	John Taylor
	Code of Silence	Peter Brodie

External links

• Andrew Tiernan at IMDb
• Dunn, Josephine M (28 March 2018). Jimmy McGovern's Cracker. Amazon: KDP. ISBN 9-7819-8062-5452.