Brendan Coyle

Acting

Brendan Coyle

Born 1963-12-02 · Corby, Northamptonshire, England, UK

Brendan Coyle (born 2 December 1962) is a British-Irish actor. He won the Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for The Weir in 1999. He also played Nicholas Higgins in the miniseries North & South, Robert Timmins in the first three series of Lark Rise to Candleford, and more recently Mr Bates, the valet, in Downton Abbey, which earned him a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Brendan Coyle was born David Coyle in Corby, Northamptonshire, on 2 December 1962, the son of a Patrick B Coyle and Bedelia M B Anderson. He has an older brother named Shaun Due to his British birth and Irish heritage, he holds both British and Irish citizenship. He is the great-nephew of football manager Sir Matt Busby. He studied drama in Dublin in 1981 and received a scholarship to Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 1983. Coyle received a Laurence Olivier Award in 1999 for his performance in Conor McPherson's The Weir and won a New York Critics Theater World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut for the same play in its New York production. In 2001, Coyle appeared in the film Conspiracy as Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller. He played Kaz Sweeney in the British drama True Dare Kiss, and Nicholas Higgins in North & South for the BBC. From 2008 he played Robert Timmins in three BBC series based on the Lark Rise to Candleford novels, written by Flora Thompson. In 2010, he began playing John Bates, valet and former British Army batman to the Earl of Grantham in Julian Fellowes's period drama series, Downton Abbey. Fellowes wrote the part for Coyle, and it won him nominations for a BAFTA and IFTA as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Awards as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2012. He also won three Screen Actors Guild Awards 2013–16. Coyle also played the character of Terry Starling in the short-lived Sky comedy series Starlings. ​

Acting credits

Me Before You poster
7.9

Lou Clark, a directionless 26-year-old from the English countryside, takes a job at the local castle as a caregiver and companion to a wealthy young banker, Will Traynor. Wheelchair-bound from an accident two years prior, the once adventurous Will has all but given up — that is until Lou determines to show him that life is worth living.

Me Before You

2016

Tomorrow Never Dies poster
6.4

A deranged media mogul is staging international incidents to pit the world's superpowers against each other. Now James Bond must take on this evil mastermind in an adrenaline-charged battle to end his reign of terror and prevent global pandemonium.

Tomorrow Never Dies

1997

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale poster
7.1

When Mary finds herself at the center of a public scandal and the family faces financial strife, the entire household grapples with the threat of social disgrace. The Crawleys must embrace change as the staff prepares for a new chapter with the next generation leading Downton Abbey into the future.

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

2025

The Jacket poster
6.9

A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.

The Jacket

2005

Downton Abbey: A New Era poster
7.2

The Crawley family goes on a grand journey to the south of France to uncover the mystery of the dowager countess's newly inherited villa. Meanwhile, a Hollywood director seeks to film his latest production at Downton.

Downton Abbey: A New Era

2022

Downton Abbey poster
7.1

The beloved Crawleys and their intrepid staff prepare for the most important moment of their lives. A royal visit from the King and Queen of England will unleash scandal, romance and intrigue that will leave the future of Downton hanging in the balance.

Downton Abbey

2019

Mary Queen of Scots poster
6.5

In 1561, Mary Stuart, widow of the King of France, returns to Scotland, reclaims her rightful throne and menaces the future of Queen Elizabeth I as ruler of England, because she has a legitimate claim to the English throne. Betrayals, rebellions, conspiracies and their own life choices imperil both Queens. They experience the bitter cost of power, until their tragic fate is finally fulfilled.

Mary Queen of Scots

2018

Conspiracy poster
7.3

At the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942, senior Nazi officials meet to determine the manner in which the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" can be best implemented.

Conspiracy

2001

The Raven poster
6.3

A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.

The Raven

2012

The Mark of Cain poster
5.2

After a bomb kills their company commander in Iraq, British soldiers Treacle and Shane are ordered to round up suspects and use torture on the detainees. Back home, the press gets the story and the pair achieves instant infamy.

The Mark of Cain

2007

Perrier's Bounty poster
5.8

A gangster named Perrier looks to exact his revenge on a trio of fugitives responsible for the accidental death of one of his cronies.

Perrier's Bounty

2010

The General poster
6.7

The real-life story of Dublin folk hero and criminal Martin Cahill, who pulled off two daring robberies in Ireland with his team, but attracted unwanted attention from the police, the I.R.A., the U.V.F., and members of his own team.

The General

1998

Butterfly in the Typewriter poster
NR

Troubled author John Kennedy Toole's struggle to bring A Confederacy of Dunces to print.

Butterfly in the Typewriter

Unless poster
4.8

A writer struggles with her daughter's decision to drop out of college and live on the streets.

Unless

2016

No artwork available
9.0

Expert IRA bomb-maker turned police informant Andrea Hayes retires and starts a new life after four school-children are killed by one of her bombs. Ten years later, her blissful home life shattered when her daughter, Katie, is abducted from her bedroom in the dead of night. Andrea later discovers a ransom note, instructing her to leave her husband Martin and fly to London by herself. It also states that if the police are contacted, she and Martin will never see Katie again. In the hope of being reunited with Katie, Andrea obeys orders and follows instructions to meet with the kidnappers. Back in Dublin, Martin is powerless to help and becomes frantic with worry when he learns from Andrea that no ransom demand has been made, and that the kidnappers' request is something much more dangerous.

The Bombmaker

2001

Noble poster
6.4

Christina Noble overcomes the harsh difficulties of her childhood in Ireland to discover her destiny on the streets of Saigon. A true story.

Noble

2014

Omagh poster
6.6

The movie starts at the 1998 bomb attack by the Real IRA at Omagh, Northern Ireland. The attack killed 31 people. Michael Gallagher one of the relatives of the victims starts an examination to bring the people responsible to court.

Omagh

2005

The One-Minute Problem poster
NR

When a Spanish immigrant who's trying to invent teleportation in his garage sucks too much power from the electrical grid, a Department of Water and Power inspector vows to shut him down, putting both his invention and his relationship with his pregnant wife at risk.

The One-Minute Problem

2026

Fool's Gold: The Story Of The Brink's Mat Robbery poster
7.0

A dramatized speculation of what happened in November 1983 when Micky McAvoy and some of his mates planned a heist and were surprised when they discovered they'd stumbled across a large stash of gold. But getting the gold away without getting caught is only the beginning of their troubles. Realizing the riches the gold represents is difficult, and honor among thieves may only be a myth.

Fool's Gold: The Story Of The Brink's Mat Robbery

1992

A Merry Murdoch Christmas poster
7.6

While investigating the murder of a rich benefactor and the theft of children's presents at a Christmas charity pageant, Murdoch discovers suggestions that a Christmas monster, a Krampus, may be involved. A Merry Murdoch Christmas is the first stand-alone two hour Christmas special that aired on December 21, 2015 in Canada, and on December 20, 2015 in France.

A Merry Murdoch Christmas

2015

I Could Read the Sky poster
4.6

The film concerns an old Irish immigrant living in London who is looking back over his life. He recalls his early life in the west of Ireland, his first love, emigrating to England, searching for his brother Joe, who disappeared after he emigrated several years previously. His marriage and wife's later depth is also remembered.

I Could Read the Sky

1999

No artwork available
NR

In the early 20th Century, a handsome young man leaves a small family farm and becomes the mastermind of a rebellion that changed Ireland forever. Follows the events that led famine Ireland to free Ireland - the 1916 Easter Rising Rebellion and the driving force behind it, Seán MacDiarmada, hero to Michael Collins.

The Rising: 1916

Perfect Parents poster
4.6

After a violent incident in Lucy's public school, her atheist parents Stuart and Alison decide to find her a safe 'traditional' school. The only one they can afford is St. Mary of the Veil, run by nuns whose 'preference' for Catholic families is de facto exclusivity, given the waiting list. So they pose as devout, and get his murky mate Eddie to find them a priest they can 'bribe' for a parish reference, while Lucy is genuinely converted. It works, but when Stuart overhears a dark secret things take a tragic turn.

Perfect Parents

2006

Wedding Belles poster
6.2

A darkly humorous look at the lives and loves of four modern women, each with their own remarkable, intriguing and often tragic stories.

Wedding Belles

2007