Dan Stevens Biography

Daniel Jonathan "Dan" Stevens (born 10 October 1982) is an English actor. He is known for his portrayal of Matthew Crawley on ITV's Downton Abbey from 2010 to 2012.

Early life and education

Stevens was adopted at birth and grew up in Croydon. He has a younger brother who was also adopted.

After a rebellious youth, Stevens boarded at Tonbridge School, a private boarding school in Kent, where he became interested in drama after auditioning for the title role in Macbeth with his teacher, novelist Jonathan Smith. Stevens went on to read English Literature at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and narrowly missed out on a first due to devoting much of his time to theatre during his final year. While at Cambridge he was a member of the Footlights alongside Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Mark Watson and the Marlowe Society; he also gained acting experience with the National Youth Theatre. He was first spotted by director Sir Peter Hall at a production of Macbeth in which he played the title character alongside Hall's daughter, Rebecca, who played Lady Macbeth.

Career

Stevens has worked extensively in theatre in Britain and the United States, alongside Peter Hall. He was nominated for an Ian Charleson Award for his portrayal of Orlando in Shakespeare's As You Like It for the Peter Hall Company in 2005.

In 2006, Stevens starred as Nick Guest in the BBC Television adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winning novel The Line of Beauty. Later that year he played Simon Bliss in Hay Fever by Noël Coward at London's Haymarket Theatre, alongside Peter Bowles and Dame Judi Dench; the director was Peter Hall. He also performed as Lord Holmwood in an adaptation of Dracula for the BBC, and as Basil Brookes in the BBC Emmy-award-winning film, Maxwell.

In 2008, Stevens appeared in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's novel, Sense & Sensibility, playing Edward Ferrars, and the West End revival of Noël Coward's The Vortex. In January 2009 he appeared on New Year's Day in Agatha Christie's Marple: Nemesis on ITV1 in Britain. In June 2009 he returned to the West End, playing Septimus Hodge in an acclaimed revival of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the Duke of York's Theatre.

In 2011, Stevens guest-hosted an episode of Have I Got News For You, which aired 25 November of that year.

In March 2012, he completed shooting two films: Vamps, the latest film from Amy Heckerling, and Summer in February, an Edwardian romance set in an artist colony.

Stevens played Matthew Crawley in the ITV series Downton Abbey, written by Julian Fellowes.

Stevens has narrated several audiobooks, including The Angel's Game, Wolf Hall and War Horse.

Stevens was a member of the judging panel for the 2012 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, editor-at-large for The Junket, an online quarterly which he co-founded, and is a regular columnist for the Daily Telegraph.

Personal life

Stevens is married to South African jazz vocalist-turned-singing teacher Susie Hariet. They met in 2006, when appearing at different theatres in Sheffield, England. Stevens was 23 and Hariet was 30. They married around September 2009. The couple have two children: a daughter named Willow, born December 2009; and a son named Aubrey, born in May 2012.

Television

Year	TV Film/Series	Role	Notes
2004	Frankenstein	Henry	TV mini-series
2006	The Line of Beauty	Nick Guest	TV mini-series (3 episodes)
	Dracula	Lord Arthur Holmwood	TV film
2007	Marple: Nemesis	Michael Faber	TV film
	Maxwell	Basil Brookes	TV film
2008	Sense and Sensibility	Edward Ferrars	TV mini-series (3 episodes)
2009	The Turn of the Screw	Dr. Fisher	TV film
2010-2012	Downton Abbey	Matthew Crawley	TV series (25 episodes) Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (2012) (award given to 22 cast members from Series 2)

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2009	Hilde	David Cameron	Feature film
2011	The North London Book of the Dead	Speaker	Short film
	Babysitting	Spencer	Short film
2012	Vamps	Joey	Feature film
	Shallow	Richard Dove	Short film
2013	Summer in February	Gilbert Evans	Feature film
	The Fifth Estate	Ian Katz	Feature film
2014	A Walk Among the Tombstones		post-production
201?	The Guest		post-production

Theatre

Year	Production	Role	Director	Venue	Awards
2004	As You Like It	Orlando	Peter Hall	The Rose Theatre, Kingston	Nominated - Ian Charleson Award
2005	You Can Never Tell			Theatre Royal, Bath
	Waiting for Godot
	Private Lives
	Much Ado About Nothing	Claudio
2006	The Romans in Britain	Marban/Maitland	Samuel West	Crucible Theatre, Sheffield
	Hay Fever	Simon Bliss	Peter Hall	Theatre Royal, Haymarket
2008	The Vortex	Nicky Lancaster		Apollo Theatre, London
2009	Every Good Boy Deserves Favour		Felix Barrett and Tom Morris	National Theatre, London
	Arcadia	Septimus Hodge	David Leveaux	Duke of York's Theatre, London
2010	Late at Night	David	Richard Curtis	The Old Vic, London
2012	The Heiress	Morris Townsend	Moisés Kaufman	Walter Kerr Theatre, Broadway

Radio

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	A Question of Attribution	Phillips	BBC Radio 4
2008	The Tennis Court	Sam Greenwood	BBC Radio 4
	Dickens Confidential (Series 2)	Charles Dickens	BBC Radio 4
	Anthem for Doomed Youth	Narrator	BBC Armistice exhibition
	The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour (Ep.1)	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2008-09	Orley Farm	Peregrine Orm	BBC Radio 4
2009	The Lady of the Camellias	Duval	BBC Radio 4
	Guilty Until Proven Innocent	Jake	BBC Radio 4
	The Music Room	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2010	The Custom of the Country	Ralph Marvell	BBC Radio 4
	The Secret Pilgrim (Ep. 1)	Ben Cavendish	BBC Radio 4
	The Coral Thief	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
	The Story of the Siren - E.M. Forster Short Stories	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
2011	A Thousand Kisses	Catullus	BBC Radio 3
	Widowers' Houses	Harry Trench	BBC Radio 3
	Portrait of Winston	Graham Sutherland	BBC Radio 4
	King James Bible	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
	A Short History of Vampires - Dracula's Guest	Bram Stoker	BBC Radio 7
	Words & Music - Money	Narrator	BBC Radio 3
	Together - Face It	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
	The Spying Game Series - The Living Daylights	Narrator	BBC Radio 4
	Something Understood	Reader	BBC Radio 4
2012	The Old Ways	Reader	BBC Radio 4