Simon Callow

Acting

Simon Callow

Born 1949-06-13 · Streatham, London, England, UK

Simon Phillip Hugh Callow CBE (born 15 June 1949) is an English actor. Known as a character actor on stage and screen, he has received numerous accolades including an Olivier Award and Screen Actors Guild Award as well as nominations for two BAFTA Awards. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to acting by Queen Elizabeth II in 1999. Callow rose to prominence originating the title role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the 1979 Peter Shaffer play Amadeus, for which he received a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination. Callow joined the Miloš Forman 1984 film adaptation, this time portraying Emanuel Schikaneder. In 1992, Callow won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Director of a Musical for Carmen Jones. As an actor, he won acclaim for his comedic roles in A Room with a View (1985) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) earning a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination for each. Other notable roles include in Maurice (1987), Howards End (1992), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and The Phantom of the Opera (2004). His television roles include Tom Chance in the Channel 4 series Chance in a Million (1984) and The Duke of Sandringham in the series Outlander from 2014 to 2016. He portrayed Napoleon in The Man of Destiny (1981), and Charles Dickens in numerous television projects. He has also appeared on numerous shows such as Midsomer Murders, Rome, Angels in America, Doctor Who, Galavant, Hawkeye, and The Witcher. Callow was born on 15 June 1949 in Streatham, South London, the son of Yvonne Mary (née Guise), a secretary and Neil Francis Callow, a businessman. His father was of French descent and his mother was of Danish and German ancestry. His father left when Simon was 18 months old, and he was brought up by his mother and grandmothers. He and his mother travelled to Northern Rhodesia (now called Zambia) when he was nine to try and reconcile with his father. This did not happen and Callow was sent for three years to boarding school in South Africa. He and his mother returned to Britain when he was twelve. He was raised as a Catholic. Callow was a student at the London Oratory School in West Brompton, and then went on to study briefly at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, where he was active in the gay liberation movement.[5] He gave up his degree course after a year to take a three-year acting course at the Drama Centre London. He made his first film appearance in 1984 as Schikaneder in Amadeus. The following year, he appeared as the Reverend Mr Beebe in A Room with a View. His first television role was in the Carry On Laughing episode "Orgy and Bess" in 1975, but it was cut from the final print. He starred in several series of the Channel 4 situation comedy Chance in a Million, as Tom Chance, an eccentric individual to whom coincidences happened regularly. Roles like this and his part in Four Weddings and a Funeral brought him to a wider audience. Callow portrayed Pliny the Elder in CBBC's 2007 children's drama series, Roman Mysteries in the episode "The Secrets of Vesuvius". He played Armand Duquesne in Marvel's Hawkeye on Disney+.

Acting credits

Amadeus poster
8.0

Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Amadeus

1984

Notting Hill poster
7.3

London bookstore owner William Thacker's quiet life turns upside down when a chance encounter with famous actress Anna Scott sparks an unlikely romance challenged by their vastly different worlds.

Notting Hill

1999

Four Weddings and a Funeral poster
6.8

Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

1994

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls poster
6.3

Summoned from an ashram in Tibet, Ace finds himself on a perilous journey into the jungles of Africa to find Shikaka, the missing sacred animal of the friendly Wachati tribe. He must accomplish this before the wedding of the Wachati's Princess to the prince of the warrior Wachootoos. If Ace fails, the result will be a vicious tribal war.

Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

1995

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 poster
5.8

Five months following the murders, Christopher Robin struggles to maintain a regular life while dealing with PTSD. However, deep within the 100-Acre-Wood, a destructive rage grows as Pooh, Piglet, Owl, and Tigger find their home and their lives endangered after their existence is revealed.

Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey 2

2024

Shakespeare in Love poster
6.8

Young William Shakespeare is forced to stage his latest comedy, 'Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter', before it's even written. When lovely noblewoman Viola de Lesseps auditions for a role, they fall into forbidden love — and Shakespeare's play finds a new life (and title). As their relationship intensifies, the comedy soon transforms into tragedy.

Shakespeare in Love

1998

The Phantom of the Opera poster
7.3

A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.

The Phantom of the Opera

2004

James and the Giant Peach poster
6.6

When the young orphan boy James spills a magic bag of crocodile tongues, he finds himself in possession of a giant peach that flies him away to strange lands.

James and the Giant Peach

1996

Street Fighter poster
4.7

Colonel Guile and various other martial arts heroes fight against the tyranny of dictator M. Bison and his cohorts.

Street Fighter

1994

Howards End poster
7.0

A saga of class relations and changing times in an Edwardian England on the brink of modernity, the film centers on liberal Margaret Schlegel, who, along with her sister Helen, becomes involved with two couples: wealthy, conservative industrialist Henry Wilcox and his wife Ruth, and the downwardly mobile working-class Leonard Bast and his mistress Jackie.

Howards End

1992

The Man Who Invented Christmas poster
6.8

In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.

The Man Who Invented Christmas

2017

A Room with a View poster
7.0

When Lucy Honeychurch and chaperon Charlotte Bartlett find themselves in Florence with rooms without views, fellow guests Mr Emerson and son George step in to remedy the situation. Meeting the Emersons could change Lucy's life forever but, once back in England, how will her experiences in Tuscany affect her marriage plans?

A Room with a View

1986

Deadly Appearances poster
7.0

Joanne Kilbourn, ex-detective turned university lecturer, is still haunted by the unsolved murder of her politician husband,

Deadly Appearances

2000

Victoria & Abdul poster
6.9

Queen Victoria strikes up an unlikely friendship with a young Indian clerk named Abdul Karim.

Victoria & Abdul

2017

Maurice poster
7.6

After his lover rejects him, Maurice attempts to come to terms with his sexuality within the restrictiveness of Edwardian society.

Maurice

1987

Ripley Under Ground poster
5.6

Now living a quiet, luxurious life at his French estate—funded by past crimes and his marriage to an heiress—Tom Ripley finds that an art scam he supports—selling forged paintings by a supposedly living artist named Derwatt—beginning to collapse. An inquisitive American collector suspects his Derwatt painting is fake and demands answers. As the situation escalates, Ripley turns to murder and elaborate identity deception to protect his reputation.

Ripley Under Ground

2007

Postcards from the Edge poster
6.6

A substance-addicted actress tries to look on the bright side even as she's forced to move back in with her mother to avoid unemployment.

Postcards from the Edge

1990

Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye poster
7.2

Join the likes of Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Florence Pugh, and Vincent D’Onofrio as they reveal how Marvel Studios’ “Hawkeye” was conceived and created. Witness firsthand what it took to pull off the show’s pulse-pounding action set pieces, and discover how iconic characters from the pages of Marvel Comics such as Kate Bishop were adapted and brought to life for the six-episode series.

Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye

2022

George and the Dragon poster
5.5

In 12th century England, the handsome and noble knight, George, has left the Crusades behind to follow his dream of a peaceful life on his own piece of land. However, in order to obtain his land from the ruling King Edgaar, he must help find the King's missing daughter, Princess Lunna, a quest which sees George drawn into an unexpected battle with the kingdom's last surviving dragon.

George and the Dragon

2004

Christmas Carol: The Movie poster
5.2

Animated version of the classic Charles Dickens story. Warned by the ghost of his old business partner Marley that his sins would lead to punishment in the afterlife, the cruel and greedy Scrooge is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to show him how the course of his life led him to where he is - and where it will lead if he doesn't change his ways.

Christmas Carol: The Movie

2001

Hampstead poster
6.1

Emily Walters is an American widow living a peaceful, uneventful existence in the idyllic Hampstead Village of London, when she meets local recluse, Donald Horner. For 17 years, Donald has lived—wildly yet peacefully—in a ramshackle hut near the edge of the forest. When Emily learns his home is the target of developers who will stop at nothing to remove him, saving Donald and his property becomes her personal mission. Despite his gruff exterior and polite refusals for help, Emily is drawn to him—as he is to her—and what begins as a charitable cause evolves into a relationship that will grow even as the bulldozers close in.

Hampstead

2017

No Man's Land poster
7.5

Two soldiers from opposite sides get stuck between the front lines in the same trench. The UN is asked to free them and both sides agree on a ceasefire, but will they stick to it?

No Man's Land

2001

Mindhorn poster
6.1

A washed up actor best known for playing the title character in the 1980s detective show "Mindhorn" must work with the police when a serial killer says that he will only speak with Detective Mindhorn, whom he believes to be real.

Mindhorn

2016

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles poster
6.5

The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

2014

Behind the camera

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe poster
5.8

A small-town eccentric opens a café in her decaying home.

The Ballad of the Sad Cafe

1991

Orson Welles Over Europe poster
7.0

When Orson Welles went into self-imposed exile in Europe, he first found stardom with The Third Man and then immersed himself in challenging films, television, theatre and bullfighting. Simon Callow trails the complex actor-director.

Orson Welles Over Europe

2009

No artwork available
NR

In a quiet English commuter town, a former parish church is knocked down to make way for a new apartment block. Locals pass by the rubble unconcerned, except for Sami Shehadi, a Syrian refugee who is upset by the lack of respect for history. After unearthing the site’s incredible origins with the help of young librarian, Bryony, the unlikely friends take action and steal the church bell to protest the redevelopment. However, amidst pressure from the police, media, and their own personal struggles, will they succeed in making this bell ring again?

About A Bell

A Christmas Carol poster
7.4

Based on Charles Dickens’s own performance adaptation, Simon Callow and director-designer Tom Cairns have created a one-man theatrical extravaganza of festive storytelling that is both heart-warming and deeply moving.

A Christmas Carol

2018

Richard Rodgers: Some Enchanted Evening poster
7.0

This star-studded gala celebrates the centenary of the birth of legendary Broadway composer Richard Rodgers. Rodgers' contribution to musical theatre was extraordinary, including 900 published songs, 40 Broadway musicals and several film scores. Rodgers, together with lyricists Lorenz Hart and later Oscar Hammerstein II, wrote many of the best known musicals of the 20th Century, including Babes In Arms, Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music. This performance at London's Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, directed for the stage by Simon Callow, includes songs, dance, staged numbers and anecdotes featuring leading stars from both Broadway and London's West End. The cast comprises luminaries drawn from Oklahoma!, Kiss Me Kate, Chicago, The King and I and other recent productions as well as from television. This musical extravaganza features many of Rodgers' best-loved classics.

Richard Rodgers: Some Enchanted Evening

2002