One of Britain's most distinguished stage performers, Derek Jacobi is one of two actors (the other being Laurence Olivier) to hold both Danish and English knighthoods. Primarily known for his work on the stage, he has also made a number of films and remains best-known to television audiences for his stunning portrayal of the titular Roman emperor in I, Claudius.
Born in Leytonstone, East London, on October 22, 1938, Jacobi was raised with a love of film, and he began performing on the stage while attending an all-boys school. Thanks to the school's single sex population, his first roles with the drama club -- until his voice broke -- were all female. It was with one of his first male roles that Jacobi earned his first measure of acclaim: playing Hamlet in a school production staged at the 1957 Edinburgh Festival, he made enough of an impression that he was approached by an agent from Twentieth Century Fox. Ultimately deemed too young to be signed to the studio, Jacobi instead went to Cambridge University, where he studied history and continued acting. His stage work at Cambridge was prolific and allowed him to work with classmates Ian McKellen and Trevor Nunn, and, thanks to his performance as Edward II, landed him his first job after graduation. Jacobi acted with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre until his portrayal of Henry VIII attracted the attention of Laurence Olivier. Olivier was so impressed with Jacobi's work that he invited him to London to become one of the eight founding members of the prestigious National Theatre.
Jacobi went on to become one of his country's most steadily employed and respected actors, performing in numerous plays over the years on both sides of the Atlantic (in 1985, he won a Tony Award for his work in Much Ado About Nothing). He also branched out into film and television, making his film debut with a secondary role in Douglas Sirk's Interlude (1957). He acted in numerous film adaptations of classic plays, including Othello (1965) and The Three Sisters (1970). However, it was through his collaborations with Kenneth Branagh on various screen adaptations of Shakespeare that he became most visible to an international film audience, appearing as the Chorus in Branagh's acclaimed 1989 Henry V and as Claudius in the director's 1996 full-length adaptation of Hamlet. Jacobi made one of his most memorable (to say nothing of terrifying) screen impressions in Branagh's Hitchcock-inspired Dead Again (1991), portraying a hypnotist with a very shady background. In 1998, Jacobi earned more recognition with his portrayal of famed painter Francis Bacon in John Maybury's controversial Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon.
On television, in addition to his celebrated work in I, Claudius, Jacobi has also earned praise for his roles in a number of other productions. In 1989, he won an Emmy for his performance in the 1988 adaptation of Graham Greene's The Tenth Man.
In 1994 he began a successful run as a mystery-solving monk in the TV series Cadfael, a program that ran for three years. He had a Shakespeare heavy 1996 playing Claudius opposite Branagh's Hamlet, and appearing in Al Pacino's documentary Looking for Richard. He lent his voice to the animated version of Beowulf. He began the new century appearing in the Best Picture winner Gladiator, and was part of the rich ensemble compiled by Robert Altman for Gosford Park. In 2005 he was in the cast of the hit children's film Nanny McPhee, and two years later he was in The Golden Compass. In 2010 he appeared in another Oscar winning best picture when he was in The King's Speech. The next year he appeared in Anonymous as well as My Week With Marilyn.
| Title | Year | Editors' Rating | User Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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Anonymous
Actor |
2011 | |||
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Ironclad
Actor |
2011 | |||
|
My Week With Marilyn
Actor |
2011 | |||
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There Be Dragons
Actor |
2011 | |||
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Hereafter
Actor |
2010 | |||
|
Joe Maddison's War
Actor |
2010 | |||
|
The King's Speech
Actor |
2010 | |||
| 2009 | ||||
|
Endgame
Actor |
2009 | |||
|
Margot
Actor |
2009 | |||
|
Adam Resurrected
Actor |
2008 | |||
| 2008 | ||||
| 2008 | ||||
|
Sidney Turtlebaum
Actor |
2008 | |||
|
Doctor Who: Utopia
TV Guest Appearance |
2007 | |||
| 2007 | ||||
| 2007 | ||||
|
The Golden Compass
Actor |
2007 | |||
|
The Old Curiosity Shop
Actor |
2007 | |||
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The Riddle
Actor |
2007 | |||
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Guantanamero
Actor |
2006 | |||
| 2006 | ||||
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Pinochet's Last Stand
Actor |
2006 | |||
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Underworld: Evolution
Actor |
2006 | |||
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Bye Bye Blackbird
Actor |
2005 | |||
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Miss Marple [TV Series]
Actor |
2005 | |||
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Nanny McPhee
Actor |
2005 | |||
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The Long Firm
Actor |
2005 | |||
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Twin Spirits
Voice |
2005 | |||
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Cloud Cuckoo Land
Actor |
2004 | |||
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Strings
Actor |
2004 | |||
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Two Men Went to War
Actor |
2004 | |||
| 2004 | ||||
| 2003 | ||||
| 2003 | ||||
| 2003 | ||||
| 2003 | ||||
| 2003 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
| 2002 | ||||
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Revelation
Actor |
2002 | |||
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Revengers Tragedy
Actor |
2002 | |||
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The Gathering Storm
Actor |
2002 | |||
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The Jury
Actor |
2002 | |||
|
Frasier: The Show Must Go Off
TV Guest Appearance |
2001 | |||
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Gosford Park
Actor |
2001 | |||
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The Body
Actor |
2001 | |||
| 2000 | ||||
| 2000 | ||||
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Gladiator
Actor |
2000 | |||
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Jason and the Argonauts
Actor |
2000 | |||
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The Chimes
Voice |
2000 | |||
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The Wyvern Mystery
Actor |
2000 | |||
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Up at the Villa
Actor |
2000 | |||
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Discovering Hamlet
Participant |
1999 | |||
| 1999 | ||||
| 1999 | ||||
| 1999 | ||||
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Basil
Actor |
1998 | |||
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Beowulf
Voice |
1998 | |||
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Cadfael: The Holy Thief
Actor |
1998 | |||
| 1998 | ||||
| 1998 | ||||
| 1998 | ||||
| 1997 | ||||
| 1997 | ||||
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Cadfael: The Rose Rent
Actor |
1997 | |||
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Breaking the Code
Actor |
1996 | |||
| 1996 | ||||
| 1996 | ||||
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Hamlet
Actor |
1996 | |||
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Looking for Richard
Actor |
1996 | |||
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Achilles
Voice |
1995 | |||
| 1995 | ||||
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Witness Against Hitler
Actor |
1995 | |||
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Cadfael: Monk's Hood
Actor |
1994 | |||
| 1994 | ||||
| 1994 | ||||
| 1994 | ||||
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The Secret Garden
Voice |
1994 | |||
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Aladdin
Voice |
1992 | |||
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The Crown Jewels
Voice |
1992 | |||
| 1992 | ||||
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Dead Again
Actor |
1991 | |||
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Fool
Actor |
1990 | |||
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Henry V
Actor |
1989 | |||
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Little Dorrit
Actor |
1988 | |||
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The Tenth Man
Actor |
1988 | |||
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The Secret Garden
Actor |
1987 | |||
|
Cyrano De Bergerac
Actor |
1985 | |||
| 1985 | ||||
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Enigma
Actor |
1982 | |||
|
Inside the Third Reich
Actor |
1982 | |||
| 1982 | ||||
|
The Secret of NIMH
Voice |
1982 | |||
| 1981 | ||||
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Blue Blood
Actor |
1980 | |||
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Charlotte
Actor |
1980 | |||
| 1980 | ||||
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Hamlet
Actor |
1979 | |||
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Richard II
Actor |
1979 | |||
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The Human Factor
Actor |
1979 | |||
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The Medusa Touch
Actor |
1978 | |||
| 1977 | ||||
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I, Claudius
Actor |
1975 | |||
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The Odessa File
Actor |
1974 | |||
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Blue Blood
Actor |
1973 | |||
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The Day of the Jackal
Actor |
1973 | |||
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The Strauss Family
Actor |
1972 | |||
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Three Sisters
Actor |
1970 | |||
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Interlude
Actor |
1968 | |||
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Much Ado About Nothing
Actor |
1967 | |||
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Othello
Actor |
1965 | |||
|
Interlude
Actor |
1957 |










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