Mark Addy

Mark Addy

Active - 1997 - 2020  |   Born - Jan 14, 1964 in York, England  |   Genres - Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

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Biography by AllMovie

After roles on a handful of BBC television shows, British actor Mark Addy made a splash on the international film scene with his turn as a rotund exotic dancer in 1997's surprise hit The Full Monty. With the filmmaking boatloads of cash stateside and garnering a handful of Academy Award nods and Addy's ability to effortlessly adopt an American accent, it took little time before he was working on the U.S. side of the pond.

Addy's first high-profile Hollywood role was a supporting gig playing Michael Keaton's pal in Jack Frost (1998), a family flick about a jazz musician who is reincarnated as a snowman. Two years later, Addy took on his first lead in an American film, filling the pelt worn previously by John Goodman, playing Fred Flintstone in the prequel The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas. Unfortunately, the project failed to keep the franchise's flame burning. The next couple years saw Addy in more supporting roles in a series of projects that ranged from barely-profitable (A Knight's Tale) to downright unsuccesful (Down to Earth and The Time Machine), but in 2002 he landed the lead on the CBS sitcom Still Standing. With Addy starring opposite Jami Gertz, the show became a hit as the lead-in to the network's wildly popular Monday-night lineup.

In between seasons of Still Standing, Addy continued to make time for the occassional big-screen project, popping up in such films as 2003's The Order and 2004's Around the World in 80 Days, the former of which reunited the actor with Brian Helgeland and Heath Ledger, the writer/director and star of A Knight's Tale. Addy married Kelly Addy in 1996. The couple has one daughter. He appeared as John Piggot in the highly-respected Red Riding trilogy, and followed that up with a role in 2010's Robin Hood as Friar Tuck. In 2011 he was cast in the initial season of HBO's Game of Thrones as King Robert Baratheon.

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Factsheet

  • Hired as a stagehand at the York Theatre Royal in England when he was 15.
  • Made his big-screen debut in the 1997 British comedy The Full Monty.
  • Watched tapes of Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners to learn to speak like Fred Flintstone for his role in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000).
  • Originally slated to portray the Great One in the 2002 CBS biopic Gleason, but backed out because of scheduling conflicts; Brad Garrett took over the role and earned an Emmy nod.
  • Appeared in the British series The Thin Blue Line and Too Much Sun before landing the lead role on CBS sitcom Still Standing, which ran from 2002 to 2006.
  • Returned to U.S. TV several years later in the HBO medieval-fantasy series Game of Thrones.