Biography

January 1, 1953 · Durban, Natal, South Africa

He is the younger brother of folk-rock musician and singer Linda Thompson (nee Pettifer) who dedicated the song 'The Banks of the Clyde' to him.

Ex-brother-in-law of Richard Thompson.

Played the character of 'Biles' in the Lindsay Anderson trilogy 'If....' (1968) 'O Lucky Man' (1973) and 'Britannia Hospital' (1982).

I could think of a million actors who deserve an Oscar who don't even get nominated.

[on Gary Oldman] Everyone's praised Gary. He won't need any more praise and he won't be paying any attention to the hype.

Gary's [Gary Oldman] done well enough and I hope he wins [an Oscar]. But, even as we speak, he'll be doing some £3 million job somewhere, so he's not suffering. He's not struggling to pay the electricity bill, whereas I know lots and lots of actors who are.

[on Gary Oldman] I've known him since he was at the Citizens in Glasgow years ago and he came to see the play Life Of Galileo at the Young Vic in London last year a couple of times, which was very good of him. He liked it so much he came twice to see it and I introduced him to the younger members of the cast, who were all thrilled to meet him. Gary never gets recognized anywhere he goes. He looks nondescript so he sat in the Young Vic and nobody noticed him at all.

[on Darkest Hour (2017)] I'm pleased the film's doing well but I've been in better films and others that you thought would do very well but didn't. I've done films up here in Scotland that deserved more recognition. Barney Thomson (2015) was a good film. And Donkeys (2010) won the BAFTA as best film. But they didn't get great releases. The cinema chains all show the same films so it's a bit of a waste of time if you are making an independent film to try to do well. I did a film years ago with Tom Conti and Helen Mirren called Heavenly Pursuits [The Gospel According to Vic (1986)], which is a terrific film but it never got much of a release. You just can't gauge it.