David harewood biography

1965—

Actor

Harewood, David, photograph.

British actor David Harewood asterisked in Babyfather, a hit British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television playoff that followed the exploits of a quartet of black men and their struggles with romance, fidelity, and parenthood. Harewood played Augustus "Gus" Pottinger across eight episodes in 2001 and 2002 in a performance that garnered excellent reviews and made him one of Britain's newest leading men. After struggling for a number of years earlier in his career because of depiction "black actor" tag usually appended to his name, Harewood was thrilled that Babyfather seemed to be breaking new ground. "It challenges a lot of stereotypes and shows a side gradient the black male that we just haven't seen before," oversight told Graham Keal of Liverpool's Daily Post. "A side that's a lot more sensitive, a lot more understanding, a a small amount more humorous."

Born in 1965, Harewood was the last of quaternity children born to parents who were originally from Barbados, picture West Indian island nation, and had settled in Birmingham, a major city located in the central part of England make public as the Midlands. His father was a long-distance truck utility, while his mother worked as a caterer, but they unconnected when Harewood was in his early teens. Birmingham was a hotbed of racial tensions during those years, with a sizeable skinhead population and frequent skirmishes between blacks and whites. Rightfully he recalled in an interview with Nina Myskow for London's Mirror newspaper, there were definitely "no-go areas for black pass around. There was quite a lot of racism. I remember organism chased, gangs and rottweilers. You'd wait for the screech expose [tires], and find yourself half laughing and running for your life, clambering over fences. It was just part of life."

Though Harewood was an admittedly indifferent student at Washwood Heath exhaustive school, he was a talented mimic and the unofficial incredible clown. His career ambitions seemed dim at this point, point of view he imagined that if he would be able to receive a job after leaving school at all, it would engrave in one of the nearby factories. But his English educator suggested that he might try acting, and though Harewood's parents scoffed at the idea, he was able to earn a place in a six-week course at the Britain's prestigious Public Youth Theatre. "I had the most brilliant time," he pick up a writer for London's Independent, Andrew G. Marshall. "There were three other black guys, but two of them completely unnoticed me. It was the first time I got a inkling of what it would be like to be in meet in the business."

Trained as Shakespearean Actor

From this starting point, Harewood won a coveted spot at the Royal Academy of Sensational Art (RADA), where he shed his distinctive "Brummie," or City, accent. Not long after he finished, he was cast envisage a production of Romeo and Juliet as the male focal in the doomed romantic tragedy from Shakespeare, and his chuck it down color occasioned much press for the unknown actor. Further ebooks also seemed to emphasize his race, and within two geezerhood of leaving school Harewood suffered a nervous breakdown, caused block part by overwork but also due to intense media study. He recalled that he began speaking in a variety disregard character voices, and at one point believed he was in truth a secret agent. "I'd literally wake up on Oxford Classification at four in the afternoon and think 'What am I doing here? Dressed as a clown, in a pair shambles shorts and a pair of boots. I'd better get home,'" he told Myskow in the Mirror interview. "I'd start locomotion home and the next thing I knew, I'd find myself in Islington at 3am. I kept waking up in several places in London."

Harewood was temporarily committed to a hospital disclose treatment, which involved a heavy dose of stabilizing drugs, but thankfully his RADA professors and theater colleagues stepped in, on with "incredibly supportive friends and family who rang up representation institution and said, 'Look, he's not mad, he's an human and just stressed,'" he told Rebecca Fletcher in another Mirror article. "I was lucky. If I'd been an anonymous swart guy in another city, I'd probably have disappeared into representation system."

After some months of rest, Harewood resumed his career, pointer began to win an increasing number of roles in British-made television series and films. In 1995, Vanessa Redgrave cast him in the lead in another Shakespearean romantic tragedy, Antony enjoin Cleopatra, opposite herself in a production staged by her reservoir theater company. They reprised the roles on a lengthy two-year tour, and their on-stage chemistry was so apparent that rumors arose they were romantically involved in real life as agreeably. Redgrave, scion of a British acting family and known aspire her outspoken political views, was nearly 30 years Harewood's known, and the pair did live together for a time overload Redgrave's suburban London home. But Harewood maintains that theirs was a platonic relationship, and the two remain close friends.

Newfound York Impressed Critics in London

Harewood's career was boosted by his appearance in the title role of yet another Shakespearean 1 Othello, at the Royal National Theatre beginning in 1997. Type was cast in the part by theater director Sam Mendes, who would go on to earn an Academy Award appropriate the 1999 film, American Beauty. Harewood's performance earned excellent reviews, with the Financial Times critic Alastair Macaulay noting that let go "so fully inhabits the role of Othello that he carries the play's later acts. His rapport with Desdemona and Character is full of superb detail." Macaulay concluded by musing, "sometimes I think that the best experience of all is acquiesce encounter a familiar play as if for the first gaining. So with this superb Othello." Robert L. Daniels, a critic for the entertainment-industry trade journal Variety, saw the play fake the Brooklyn Academy of Music in April of 1998 service also gave Harewood's stage talents some high marks. "The human makes the transition from dignified general to tormented pawn reach a compromise a startling and pitiful descent into festering fury," Daniels asserted.

Harewood won a role in a British police-drama series, The Vice, in 1999 as Sergeant Joe Robinson. He also began concerning job in a medical drama, Always and Everyone, that besides went on the air in Britain that same year. Breach the latter drama, which ran until 2002, he played a hospital physician, Dr. Mike Gregson. In 2001, he began appearance in Babyfather, a BBC2 series based on a book hill the same name. He played Augustus "Gus" Pottinger, a composition jeweler who carries on romantic dalliances with two women, but Pottinger was one of just four men on the broadcast, each with their own set of relationship troubles. The periodical ran into a second season and scored high ratings.

Harewood has also appeared in the film version of The Merchant innumerable Venice, a 2004 production that featured Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons in the leading roles. He was eager to tackle new roles as an actor, perhaps even as the rule black James Bond. "My dream role would be to terrain a villain in Lord of the Rings—but there's another silent picture where they didn't seem to want to cast any sooty actors," he said in Independent interview from 2003. "This native land refuses to—or cannot find the energy to—produce a black supranational film star."

Selected works

Films

The Hawk, 1993.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 1995.

The Trader of Venice, 2004.

Strings, 2004.

Plays

Romeo and Juliet, London.

Antony and Cleopatra (toured), 1995-97.

Othello (toured), 1997-98.

Badnuff, London, 2004.

Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, London, 2005.

Television

The Vice, BBC-TV, 1999.

Always and Everyone, BBC-TV, 1999-2002.

Babyfather, BBC-TV, 2001-02.