David Wheeler (born 20 March 1963), better known as David Thewlis (), is an English actor and filmmaker. He has won one Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and received nominations for two BAFTA Awards, one Golden Globe Award, one Primetime Emmy Award, and one Screen Actors Guild Award.
Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit (1987) and had his breakthrough with roles in the Mike Leigh films Life Is Sweet (1990) and Naked (1993), winning the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for the latter. He appeared in films such as Black Beauty (1994), Restoration (1995), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Dragonheart (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), The Big Lebowski (1998), Gangster No. 1 (2000), and as Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter franchise (2004–2011). Other film roles include Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), War Horse (2011), The Theory of Everything (2014), Anomalisa (2015), Wonder Woman (2017), I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020), and Enola Holmes 2 (2022).
Thewlis's most notable television roles include V. M. Varga in the third season of FX's Fargo (2017), the voice of the Shame Wizard in the Netflix animated sitcoms Big Mouth (2017–2025) and Human Resources (2022–2023), Christopher Edwards in the HBO miniseries Landscapers (2021), John Dee in the Netflix drama series The Sandman (2022), and Fagin in the Disney+ TV series The Artful Dodger (2023). His performance in Fargo earned him nominations for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and a Critics' Choice Award.
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Early life
Thewlis was born David Wheeler in Blackpool on 20 March 1963, the middle child of Maureen (née Thewlis) and Alec Raymond Wheeler. His parents ran a toy and wallpaper shop. As a teenager, he played in a rock band called QED and played lead guitar with a punk rock band called Door 66. He was educated at Highfield High School in Blackpool's Marton area. He later joined London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1984.
Career
Acting
Wheeler decided to use his mother's maiden name, Thewlis, for his stage name after attempting to register with the actors' union and discovering that his birth name, David Wheeler, was already used by someone else. His first professional role after doing so was in the play Buddy Holly at the Regal in Greenwich and in a commercial for Kellogg's Bran Flakes. In theatre, Thewlis has starred in Sam Mendes' The Sea at the Royal National Theatre, Max Stafford-Clark's Ice Cream at the Royal Court Theatre, The Ruffian on the Stairs/The Woolley at Farnham, and The Lady and the Clarinet at the King's Head Theatre.
He went on to play small roles in high-profile series such as BBC's Only Fools and Horses (1985), and The Singing Detective (1986), before being offered a more significant part in Alan Clarke's Road, and in the ITV sitcom Valentine Park (1987). That same year, Thewlis made his film debut in Little Dorrit.
His first big-screen leading role was opposite Clive Owen in Vroom, directed by Beeban Kidron in 1988, and he starred in Paul Greengrass's anti-Falkland War drama Resurrected (1989), playing a presumed-dead soldier who returns to Britain. He collaborated with Mike Leigh on Life Is Sweet (1990), in which he played Jane Horrocks' character's lover. He continued playing low-key supporting roles in films such as Damage (1992), directed by Louis Malle, and the David Hugh Jones directed film The Trial (1993).
Thewlis's breakout role was in the film Naked (1993), directed by Mike Leigh, as the main character Johnny, a homeless, highly intelligent, embittered, rambling street philosopher, for which Thewlis was named Best Actor by the National Society of Film Critics, the London Film Critics Circle, the Evening Standard, the New York Film Critics' Circle and the Cannes Film Festival. That same year, he appeared on television as a sexual predator named James Jackson opposite Helen Mirren and Ciarán Hinds in Prime Suspect 3.
During the 1990s, Thewlis appeared in a variety of films, mostly fantasy and period pieces, including Restoration (1995), Black Beauty (1994), Total Eclipse (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Dragonheart (1996), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997), opposite Brad Pitt. He was nominated for a British Independent Film Award, for Divorcing Jack (1998), and played Clov in a television film of Samuel Beckett's Endgame (2000). Notable appearances included Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged (1998), the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski (1998), and opposite Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell in Paul McGuigan's Gangster No. 1 (2000).
Filmmaking
Thewlis directed Hello, Hello, Hello in 1995, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film at the 49th British Academy Film Awards. He also wrote, directed and starred in the feature Cheeky (2003).
Writing
Thewlis's black comedy novel set in the art world, The Late Hector Kipling, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007. His second book, Shooting Martha, was published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2021.
Personal life
Thewlis married Welsh director and actress Sara Sugarman in 1992 and they divorced in 1994. He later dated English actress Kate Hardie for three years. He began a relationship with English actress Anna Friel in 2000, and they had a daughter in 2005 before they split up in 2010. Thewlis married French designer and artist Hermine Poitou on 6 August 2016. They live in Sunningdale.
