Some portrayals of historical and literary characters stand the test of time and become the yardstick for those portrayals: Colin Firth’s Darcy, Michael Sheen’s David Frost, Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone, Richard Armitage’s John Thornton.  Nothing can quite prepare you for your first glimpse of Richard Armitage in his seminal portrayal of John Thornton.  He stands on the overseer’s platform in a mill, the room enveloped in a blizzard of flying cotton.  He spots a man walking back from a smoke break, emptying the smouldering tobacco from his pipe.  He points at the man and yells, ‘Stephens!’.  From that first glimpse of his proud visage overseeing his empire and the fierce anger at the man placing so many lives at risk, we know we are at the start of a journey that is going to grab our attention and not let go, even beyond the end of the drama.  That’s not to take anything away from any other actor who has played those roles, it’s that some actors are just born to possess a character to such an extent there is no room for anyone else.

Like a lot of actors who seemingly come out of nowhere Richard had a hard slog to reach his perfect role.  He was 34 when he played John Thornton and had started acting professionally at the age of 17.  Between the ages of 17 and 34 he gained a whole lifetime of experience; gaining his Equity card by working as a performance artist at a circus in Hungary.  He danced in the West End in such high profile musicals as 42nd Street, Cats and Showboat.  He played increasingly bigger bit parts in established dramas like Boon.  Richard even found time to go back to college and study for an acting qualification at LAMDA.  He found himself one of the best agents in the business and worked hard to raise his profile as well as hone his craft.  He gained regular roles in popular British dramas such as Cold Feet and Ultimate Force. 

Then, in 2004, he achieved the role that would be the turning point for him – John Thornton.  In a 2005 interview he recalled how in the minutes before he was due to audition at the BBC, he found himself in a bar ordering a large glass of red wine to steady his nerves. 

Early Life

Richard Crispin Armitage was born on Sunday 22nd August 1971, in Leicester, UK, to Margaret and John Armitage. Richard is the younger of their two boys.  The family grew up in a normal house, in a normal village.  The difference between Richard and any other 14 year old boy is that he managed to persuade his parents to send him to Pattison’s Dancing Academy, now known as Pattison College.  Pattison’s, an independent school which specialised in performing arts, was the start of Richard’s training for his career as an actor.  His interest in acting was born here.  He has been quoted as saying that it was while he was at Pattison’s, during a school theatre trip, that he first realised that maybe this was the direction in which he wanted to take his life.

On leaving school Richard joined a physical theatre group based in Budapest, Hungary, for a short run.  It enabled him to obtain his Equity card, which at that time in the UK was a requirement for a career as an actor.  His Equity card acquired, he returned to the UK and started working on the London stage.  During these early years he appeared in a number of musicals including Cats, Annie Get Your Gun and 42nd Street.

Richard spent the following couple of years gaining theatre experience.  His next step was to enrol in an acting course at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, LAMDA.  He continued to gain experience acting in student productions.  During his final year at LAMDA he spotted an advert on the college noticeboard that led to his brief but shining (and difficult to spot) role in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.  Even Richard himself missed it when watching the film – he dropped his popcorn.  That blink and you miss it role was a slow but steady start to a very successful career.  To some die-hard Star Wars fans in Japan he was the number one attraction on a tour with the RSC.

Leaving LAMDA and finding himself alone in the big bad world of acting with only his talent and an Equity card meant a series of roles in rep all over the country and a few jobs that weren’t acting related.  One of the jobs that was acting related turned into an 18 month stint as a member of the RSC, the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon.  Seasons in Stratford, tours in both the UK and abroad followed with his tour of duty culminating in the RSC’s acclaimed film of Macbeth. 

It was shortly after this that his career direction changed away from theatre towards roles on TV.  Richard had already appeared on TV during his time in musical theatre.  He continued on his journey with small guest spots on popular dramas such as Casualty and Doctors as well as a very brief first glimpse of him in Spooks as an armed police officer.  His next role was more substantial and one cited by many fans as their favourite, that of John Standring in Sparkhouse, Sally Wainwright’s modern re-working of Wuthering Heights.

Next came the role of Lee, the flirty lifeguard in the final series of ITV’s popular comedy drama Cold Feet, swiftly followed by another role in another popular drama.  The role was Captain Ian McAlwaine in Ross Kemp’s SAS drama, Ultimate Force.  His next role as Paul Andrews in Kay Mellors’ Between the Sheets would be another step in his steady growth.  It was a significant role and one that gave us the opportunity as fans to see the type of multi-layered, subtly nuanced performance that has since become Richard’s trademark style.

2004 was the start of better things.  From spring of that year the BBC started filming their adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South.  It is the story of a genteel, ex-parson’s daughter’s move from their privileged village life in the rural south to the harsh climate of the industrial north after her father resigns on a matter of conscience.  He starred as John Thornton to Daniela Denby Ashes’ Margaret Hale.  As is usually the case the BBC excelled themselves in their adaptation, exceeding their own expectations of how popular the drama would be with audiences.  Richard’s portrayal as John Thornton showed us the vulnerable inner workings of an outwardly strong northern mill owner and won him an army of fans.  Overnight Richard seemed to become the sole topic of conversation on the internet, or so it seemed at the time.

His next couple of appearances on TV were as part ensemble casts.  The first in the popular British drama, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, the second in a two part drama shown on ITV, Malice Aforethought.  Next to come was the lead role in The Golden Hour.  Richard played the head of a team of doctors who responded to emergencies by helicopter, in the hope that getting to and treating their patient within that important ‘golden hour’ would improve their chances of survival.  There was only one series of the drama made.  2005 turned out to be quite a busy year for Richard and he ended it in the role of Macduff in the second tranché of Shakespeare Retold stories from the BBC.  In the spring of 2006 he appeared on our screens again, this time as the young Claude Monet in the BBC’s docu-drama, The Impressionists.

Adventures in a Hungarian Forest and Beyond

Autumn 2006 brought his highest profile role to date, that of Guy of Gisborne in the BBC’s flagship autumn family drama, Robin Hood.  It entered its third and final series in 2009.  We saw a new Guy, filled with angst and anger a plenty after the murder of Marion, something for Richard to get his dramatic teeth into!

Between the start of Robin Hood and now there was a lot to keep Richard occupied and keep his fans happy.  Six audiobooks for Robin Hood, a couple of voiceovers for Channel Four and ITV in the form of The Great Sperm Race and Homes from Hell, respectively.  There has also been a wildly successful audiobook adaptation of Bernard Cornwell’s Lords of the North.  An appearance as the Handsome Stranger who gets the girl in the last ever two episodes of Richard Curtis’ Vicar of Dibley was Richard’s first foray into comedy.  There was also a role as the leader of a gang of bikers in the 60’s detective drama, George Gently.  2006 also saw him star as the first husband of tragic music hall star Marie Lloyd.  As well as the above he also starred in a Miss Marple mystery based on her novel Ordeal by Innocence.  There was another voiceover for a series called Empire’s Children for Channel 4.  However, the highlight of the past couple of years has to be a lead role in Spooks, as the spy who came in from the cold, Lucas North.

2009 brought us Richard’s chocolatey tones as the narrator of New Homes from Hell 2009, a documentary about the disasters that can be faced by new home owners; and an audiobook of the Georgette Heyer Regency romance, Sylvester. That year also brought us two more Robin Hood audiobooks, The Siege and Witchfinders, based on the final series. We saw the excellent drama called Drowning, Not Waving, part of a series of daytime dramas produced by The Street’s Jimmy McGovern; and, sadly, bid farewell to Sir Guy and saw the last series of Robin Hood.

2010 proved a very busy year. It saw Richard create a new, highly successful action character, John Porter, a "killing machine and a husband and father", an SAS operative drawn from Chris Ryan's novel, Strike Back and produced for Sky. John Porter will be back in 2011, although, for how much of the series is uncertain. Lucas North, our favourite spy, was back for his what looks to be his final series (9) of Spooks and, towards the end of the year Richard filmed another baddie, Heinz Kruger, a Nazi spy and key early antagonist in the Marvel movie, Captain America: The First Avenger, scheduled for release in July, 2011. To top that he has been cast as the second lead, Thorin Oakenshield in Peter Jackson's movie The Hobbit, with Martin Freeman (Dr John Watson in Sherlock) as Bilbo Baggins. The Hobbit will be released in 2 parts in December 2012 and 2013; filming began in March 2011 and is expected to continue through to some time in 2012.

Adding to his growing audio repertoire Richard, as the villain Robert Lovelace, led a stellar cast in the BBC 1 radioplay, Clarissa, based on the Richardson novel. As well as two further Georgette Heyer audiobooks, Venetia and The Convenient Marriage, Richard performed with Emilia Fox in BBC Radio 4's Words and Music series in the episode, Symphony of the City. The episode combines music, prose and poetry bringing the experience of the city vividly to life. Venetia was nominated for an Audie award as best adaptation, however, did not win. He voiced the narration for a second series of New Homes From Hell; a new series, Surgery School, following the lives of young surgeons as they work towards life as a consultant; Rumble in the Jungle, a documentary about forest elephants; and Too Poor for Posh School about recipients of the Peter Beckwith Scholarship to Harrow as well as the voiceover for several advertising campaigns including the British involvement in Canada's Olympics. He also narrated the 3-part BBC documentary, Lost Land of the Tiger which was nominated for a Royal Television Society award in the Science and Natural History category but, unfortunately was not successful.

After 9 years in television and film, Richard capped 2010 with a return to live theatre. During 2010, Richard spent his 'spare time' preparing for his role in Aphra Behn's Restoration comedy, The Rover. The first read-through was in November, a week after he appeared at the Old Vic, to very good reviews, in the first of 6 plays produced for the annual charity event "24-Hour plays". This was his first performance in live theatre since his role as Antonio in The Duchess of Malfi at the Barbicon in 2001. The date and venue for The Rover have yet to be announced.