Stephen Fry

Early life and education

Stephen John Fry was born on 24 August 1957 in the Hampstead area of London, the son of historian Marianne Eve Fry (née Neumann) and physicist and inventor Alan John Fry (1930–2019). He has an older brother, Roger, and a younger sister, Joanna. His paternal grandmother, Ella Fry (née Pring), had roots in Cheshire and Kent. The Fry family originates around the Shillingstone and Blandford areas of Dorset; in the early 1800s, Samuel Fry settled in Surrey, with his descendants residing in Middlesex. In his autobiographical writings and elsewhere, Fry has claimed a relationship to the Fry family that founded the eponymous chocolate company, John Fry (one of the signatories to the death warrant for Charles I), and the cricketer C. B. Fry. Fry's mother is Jewish, but he was not brought up in a religious family. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jews who emigrated from Šurany (now in Slovakia) to the UK in 1927, establishing themselves in Bury St. Edmunds. Rosa's parents, who originally lived in Vienna, were deported to a Nazi ghetto in Riga, where they were killed. His mother's aunt and cousins were sent to Auschwitz and Stutthof and never seen again.

Fry grew up in the village of Booton, Norfolk, having moved at an early age from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he had attended Chesham Preparatory School. He briefly attended Cawston Primary School in Cawston, Norfolk, before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School in Uley, Gloucestershire, at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School in Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house and was described as a "near-asthmatic genius". He took his O-levels in 1972 at the early age of 14 and passed all except physics, but was expelled from Uppingham half a term into the sixth form. Fry described himself as a "monstrous" child and wrote that he was expelled for "various misdemeanours". He was later dismissed from Paston School, a grant-maintained grammar school that refused to let him progress to study A-Levels.

Fry moved to Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, where, after two years in the sixth form studying English, French, and History of Art, he ultimately failed his A-Levels, not turning up for his English and French papers. Over the summer, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend. He had taken a coat when leaving a pub, planning to spend the night sleeping rough, but had then discovered the card in a pocket. He was arrested in Swindon and, as a result, spent three months in Pucklechurch Remand Centre on remand. Following his release, he resumed his education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously and sit the University of Cambridge entrance exams. In 1977, he passed two A-levels in English and French, with grades of A and B. He also received a grade A in an alternative O-level in the Study of Art and scored a distinction in an S-level paper in English. Having successfully passed the entrance exams in 1977, Fry was offered a scholarship at Queens' College, Cambridge, for matriculation in 1978, briefly teaching at Cundall Manor School, a preparatory school in North Yorkshire, before taking his place. At Cambridge, he joined the Footlights, appeared on the University Challenge TV quiz, and read English Literature, graduating with an upper second-class honours BA degree in 1981 (subsequently promoted automatically to a Cambridge MA degree). Fry also met his future comedy collaborator, Hugh Laurie (through their mutual friend Emma Thompson) at Cambridge and starred alongside him in the Footlights.

Career

1981–1993: Sketch comedy beginnings

Fry wrote the play Latin! or Tobacco and Boys for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Fringe First prize. It had a revival in 2009 at London's Cock Tavern Theatre, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher. The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of 1981, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical Me and My Girl for the West End, where it ran for eight years and received two Laurence Olivier Awards. The show transferred to Broadway, and Fry was nominated for a Tony Award for his adaptation.

Fry has appeared in numerous advertisements, predominantly on UK television – either on-screen or in voice-over – starting with an appearance as "Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar" in a 1982 advert for Whitbread Best Bitter. Fry has said, in his memoirs, that after receiving his payment for this work – £25,000 – he has never subsequently experienced "what one could call serious money troubles". He has since appeared in adverts for products and companies such as Marks & Spencer, Twinings, Kenco, Vauxhall Motors, Honda, Calpol, Heineken, Alliance & Leicester (a series of adverts which also featured Hugh Laurie), After Eight mints, Direct Line insurance (with Paul Merton), Trebor mints, Virgin Media, Walkers potato crisps (fronting a new flavour), and Sainsbury's supermarket. He filmed a 2016 advertisement where he explains the essence of British culture to foreigners arriving at London's Heathrow Airport.

Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Tony Slattery. The revue caught the attention of Granada Television, which, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News, hired Fry, Laurie, and Thompson to star alongside Ben Elton in There's Nothing to Worry About! A second series, retitled Alfresco, was broadcast in 1983, and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered Fry, Laurie, and Thompson their own show, which became The Crystal Cube, a mixture of science fiction and mockumentary that was cancelled after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry, Laurie, and Thompson appeared in "Bambi", an episode of The Young Ones from 1984 where they parodied themselves as the University Challenge representatives of "Footlights College, Oxbridge", and Fry also appeared in Ben Elton's 1985 Happy Families series. In April 1986, Fry was among the British comedians who appeared in the first live telethon Comic Relief. In 1986 and 1987, Fry and Laurie performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show Saturday Live.

1994–2008: Film roles, voice work, and QI

Fry's first novel, The Liar, was published in 1991. Fry has since written three further novels, several non-fiction works, and three volumes of autobiography. Making History (1996) is partly set in an alternative universe in which Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile, and his replacement proves a more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. The Hippopotamus (1994) is about Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. The Hippopotamus was later adapted into a 2017 film. The Stars' Tennis Balls (2000) is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. Fry's book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within is a guide to writing poetry.

When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under a pen name, Williver Hendry, editor of A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey, a field close to his heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he wrote a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks.

Fry was cast in a lead role in Simon Gray's 1995 play Cell Mates, which he left three days into the West End run, pleading stage fright. He later recalled the incident as a hypomanic episode in his documentary about bipolar disorder, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. He acted in a 1998 Malcolm Bradbury adaptation of the Mark Tavener novel In the Red, taking the part of the Controller of BBC Radio 2; and in 2000, in the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial Gormenghast, which was adapted from the first two novels of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series. In the 1994 romantic comedy film I.Q., he played the role of James Moreland. Portraying his idol Oscar Wilde (of whom he had been an ardent admirer since the age of 13) in the 1997 film Wilde, he fulfilled the role to critical acclaim. It earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Drama. In 1997, he also had a cameo in the Spice Girls film Spice World. A year later, Fry starred in David Yates' small independent film The Tichborne Claimant, and in 2001, he played the detective in Robert Altman's period costume drama, Gosford Park. In the same year, he also appeared in the Dutch film The Discovery of Heaven, directed by Jeroen Krabbé and based on the novel by Harry Mulisch.

In 2000, Fry began starring as Charles Prentiss in the Radio 4 comedy Absolute Power, reprising the role for three further series on radio, and two on television. In 2002, he played The Minister of Chance in the Doctor Who audio drama Death Comes to Time. In 2002, Fry was one of the narrators of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, in which he voiced Winnie-the-Pooh. He presented a 20-part, two-hour series, The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music, a "witty guide" to the genre over the past 1,000 years, on Classic FM. In 2004, he was the narrator for an adaptation of Vanity Fair on BBC Radio 4. Fry has been the reader for the British versions of all of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series of audiobooks. He discussed this project in an interview with Rowling in 2005. He has also read for Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film tie-in edition and has made recordings of his own books, such as The Stars' Tennis Balls and Moab Is My Washpot, and of works by Roald Dahl, Michael Bond, A. A. Milne, Anthony Buckeridge, Eleanor Updale, George Orwell, and Alexander Pushkin.

2009–2014: Return to theatre and documentaries

In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled Stephen Fry's Podgrams, in which he recounts his life and recent experiences. In July 2008, he appeared as himself in I Love Stephen Fry, an Afternoon Play for Radio 4 written by former Fry and Laurie script editor Jon Canter. On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, which he later recorded for a podcast. His six-part travel series Stephen Fry in America began on BBC One in October 2008 and saw him travel to each of the 50 US states. In the same year, he narrated the nature documentary Spectacled Bears: Shadow of the Forest for the BBC Natural World series. In the 2009 television series Last Chance to See, Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine sought out endangered species, some of which had been featured in Douglas Adams' and Carwardine's 1990 book and radio series of the same name.

Fry's voice has been featured in several video games, including an appearance as Reaver, an amoral supporting character in Lionhead Studios' games Fable II (2008) and Fable III (2010), and as the narrator of the LittleBigPlanet series. He also narrates a section of Bungie's Destiny 2 (2017) expansion Warmind as the "Concierge", an AI that, when interacted with at certain points, will give the player background information on Bray Exoscience. In 2008, Fry's narration for Bond's Paddington Bear story More About Paddington (1959) saw him receive the Audie Award for Young Listeners' Title from the Audio Publishers Association in the U.S.

Since August 2008, he has presented Fry's English Delight, a series on BBC Radio 4 about the English language. As of 2021, it has been running for ten series and 37 episodes. In the 2009 series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Fry was one of a trio of hosts replacing Humphrey Lyttelton (the others being Jack Dee and Rob Brydon). Fry was offered a role in Valkyrie, but was unable to participate. In May 2009, Fry unveiled The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, an audiobook series following Donald Trefusis (a fictional character from Fry's novel The Liar and from the BBC Radio 4 series Loose Ends), set over 12 episodes. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart list. Ultimately, however, only three episodes were released, the rest with the note 'exact release date pending'. Fry's use of the word "luvvie" (spelled "lovie" by Fry), in The Guardian on 2 April 1988, is given by the Oxford English Dictionary as the earliest recorded use of the word as a humorous synonym for "actor". Fry was, at one time, slated to adapt A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole for the big screen. In 2009, Fry provided the voice of St Peter for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. In 2010, having learned some Irish for the role, he filmed a cameo role in Ros na Rún, an Irish-language soap opera broadcast in Ireland, Scotland, and the US.

2015–present

On 17 September 2015, Fry shared the role of the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show, which was staged at London's Playhouse Theatre and broadcast as the Rocky Horror Show Live. In June 2015, Fry backed children's fairy tale app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF together with other British celebrities Sir Roger Moore, Ewan McGregor, Joanna Lumley, Michael Caine, David Walliams, Dame Joan Collins, Charlotte Rampling, Paul McKenna, and Michael Ball. In 2015, Fry made a live audio recording of the winning short story of the annual RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award, Ms. Featherstone and the Beast by Bethan Roberts, at a ceremony held at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. In February 2017, Audible released Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, a complete collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, all read by Fry, who also narrated an introduction for each novel or collection of stories. In 2017, Fry also released his own audiobook on Audible, titled Mythos, which he both wrote and narrated. In 2018, Fry released a follow-up to Mythos, titled Heroes. In June 2020, it was announced that Fry would read J. K. Rowling's children's book, The Ickabog. Fry is the patron of the audiobook charity Listening Books. Fry said of his patronage, "I'm proud and delighted to be patron of the first audiobook charity to offer downloads to its members and excited about what this will mean for all print-impaired people who can now listen on the go."

In January 2016, it was announced that Fry would be appearing as the character "Cuddly Dick" in Series 3 of the Sky One family comedy Yonderland. In 2016, Fry had a lead role in the American sitcom The Great Indoors. He portrayed an outdoor magazine publisher helping to ease his best worldly reporter (Joel McHale) into a desk job. The show was cancelled after one season. In November 2019, it was announced that Fry would guest star in "Spyfall", the two-part opening episode of Doctor Who's twelfth series, which was broadcast on New Year's Day 2020. Fry also starred in the 2018 heist comedy film The Con Is On, previously titled The Brits Are Coming. From May to July 2018, Fry appeared in Mythos: A Trilogy, a stage version of his book Mythos, in the Shaw Festival Theatre in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. This comprised a set of three one-man shows (titled Gods, Heroes and Men), each two hours in length, which were performed consecutively, multiple times during the show's run. The production received its European premiere in August 2019 at the Edinburgh International Festival. In September 2020, Fry was among the stars to mark the 100th anniversary of Sir Noël Coward's West End debut with a stage celebration titled "A Marvellous Party".

He reprised his role as (a descendant of) Lord Melchett for The Big Night In, a 20 April 2020 telethon held during the COVID-19 pandemic, for a skit in which he held a video call with Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who made a surprise appearance. In 2022, Fry had a recurring role as biochemist Ian Gibbons in the Hulu miniseries The Dropout, which dramatizes the scandal involving biotechnology company Theranos. He portrayed Fiddler's Green / Gilbert in the Netflix series The Sandman (2022). The same year, he starred in two episodes of the Netflix romantic LGBT teen drama Heartstopper as the headmaster of the main character's school. In 2023, he portrayed a fictitious King James III in the LGBT romantic comedy Red, White & Royal Blue.

Awards, honours, and recognition

Over Fry's career, he has received 11 BAFTA Award nominations for his work in television. For his performance as Oscar Wilde in Wilde (1998), he earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. He won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture along with the ensemble of the Robert Altman-directed murder mystery Gosford Park (2001). For his work on Broadway, he received two Tony Award nominations for Best Book of a Musical for Me and My Girl (1987) and Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance as Malvolio in the revival of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (2014).

In 1995, Fry was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D. h.c.) by the University of Dundee, which named their main Students' Association bar after his novel The Liar. Fry is a patron of its Lip Theatre Company. He also served two consecutive terms – 1992 to 1995 and 1995 to 1998 – as the student-elected Rector of the University of Dundee. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Letters (D.Litt. h.c.) by the University of East Anglia in 1999.

In 2003, Fry was the last person to be named Pipe Smoker of the Year before the award was discontinued. He was awarded the AoC Gold Award in 2004 and was entered into their Hall of Fame. Fry was also awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of the University (DUniv) from Anglia Ruskin University in 2005.

In December 2006, he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on The Culture Show, and was voted Most Intelligent Man on Television by readers of Radio Times. The Independent on Sunday Pink List named Fry the second most influential gay person in Britain in May 2007; he had taken the twenty-third position on the list the previous year. Later the same month, he was announced as the 2007 Mind Champion of the Year, in recognition of the success of his documentary The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive in raising awareness of bipolar disorder. He was also nominated in "Best Entertainment Performance" for QI and "Best Factual Series" for Secret Life of the Manic Depressive at the British Academy Television Awards 2007. That same year, Broadcast magazine listed Fry at number four in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, describing him as a polymath and a "national treasure".

Personal life

Fry married comedian Elliott Spencer in January 2015 in Dereham, Norfolk. Fry lives in West Bilney in Norfolk. He became friends with King Charles III while Charles was Prince of Wales, through his work with The Prince's Trust. He attended the then-Prince's wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. He is also a friend of Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. He was a friend of Sir John Mills. His best friend is Hugh Laurie, whom he met while both were at Cambridge and with whom he has collaborated many times over the years. He was the best man at Laurie's wedding and is the godfather to all three of his children.

Fry started using cocaine in his twenties and continued until 2001. He wrote about his drug use in the memoir More Fool Me (2014).

A fan of cricket, Fry has stated that he is related to former England cricketer C. B. Fry, and was interviewed for the Ashes Fever DVD, reporting on England's victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. Regarding football, he is a supporter of Norwich City FC, and is a regular visitor to their home ground at Carrow Road. He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital" and claims to have bought the third Macintosh computer sold in the UK (his friend Douglas Adams bought the first two). He jokes that he has never encountered a smartphone that he has not purchased. He counts Wikipedia among his favourite websites.

Fry has a long-standing interest in Internet production, stating in a discussion with the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee that Fry built his own website as early as 1994, and that this was the first URL printed in a British newspaper. His site, The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry, has existed since 2002 and has attracted many visitors following his first blog in September 2007, which consisted of a 6,500-word "blessay" on smartphones. In February 2008, he launched his private podcast series, Stephen Fry's Podgrams (defunct), and a forum, including discussions on depression and activities in which he is involved. The website content is created by Fry and produced by Andrew Sampson. Fry's weekly gadget column Dork Talk appeared in The Guardian from November 2007 to October 2008. Fry is also a supporter of GNU and the Free Software Foundation. For the 25th anniversary of the GNU operating system, Fry appeared in a video explaining some of the philosophy behind GNU by likening it to the sharing found in science.

Sexuality

Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and by his own account did not engage in sexual activity for 16 years between 1979 and 1995. When asked when he first acknowledged his sexuality, Fry quipped: "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those'." In his 1997 autobiography titled Moab Is My Washpot, however, Fry attributed the joke to "a friend at university", adding, "I have since shamelessly used this as my own explanation of When I Knew."

Fry was in a 15-year relationship with Daniel Cohen that ended in 2010. Fry was listed number 2 in 2016 and number 12 in 2017 on the Pride Power list.

On 6 January 2015, British tabloid The Sun reported that Fry would marry his partner, comedian Elliott Spencer. Fry wrote on Twitter: "It looks as though a certain cat is out of a certain bag. I'm very very happy of course but had hoped for a private wedding. Fat chance!" Eleven days after the news story, Fry married Spencer on 17 January at Dereham in Norfolk.

Political views

Fry was an active supporter of the Labour Party for many years and appeared in a party political broadcast on its behalf with Hugh Laurie and Michelle Collins in November 1993. He did not vote in the 2005 general election because of the Iraq War. Despite his praise of the Blair/Brown government's social policy, Fry criticised Labour's Third Way concept. Fry appeared in campaign literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing members of parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum of 2011.

On 30 April 2008, Fry signed an open letter, published in The Guardian newspaper by several Jewish personalities, stating their opposition to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. He is a signatory member of the British Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JJP) organisation, which campaigns for Palestinian rights.

Fry was among over 100 signatories to a statement published by Sense about Science on 4 June 2009, condemning British libel laws and their use to "severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest".

In August 2013, Fry published an open letter to the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee calling for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, due to concerns over the state-sanctioned persecution of LGBT people in Russia under the 2013 anti-"gay propaganda" laws. Cameron stated on Twitter that he believed "we can better challenge prejudice as we attend, rather than boycotting the Winter Olympics".

In March 2014, Fry publicly backed "Hacked Off" and its campaign towards press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable". He said in 2015 that the Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre "has done more to damage the Britain I love than any single person".

In April 2016, Fry caused controversy by accusing survivors of child sexual abuse of self-pity for expecting trigger warnings. Soon after, he apologised for his comments.

On 18 May 2018, Fry participated in the semi-annual Munk Debates in Toronto, Canada, where he argued against political correctness on the Con side of the topic "Be it resolved, what you call political correctness, I call progress..." alongside Jordan Peterson, and in opposition to the Pro side represented by Michelle Goldberg and Michael Eric Dyson. During the debate, Fry paraphrased a famous sentence from the 1923 essay I Am Afraid, in which Old Bolshevik-turned-Soviet dissident Yevgeny Zamyatin denounced censorship in the Soviet Union. The original sentence reads, "True literature can exist only when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics." Fry's rendering, however, reads, "Progress is not achieved by preachers and guardians of morality, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and sceptics."

Health

Fry has cyclothymia, a form of bipolar disorder (considered to be a milder type). Fry has spoken publicly about his experience with the condition, which was depicted in the documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. In the programme, he interviewed other people with bipolar disorder including Carrie Fisher, Richard Dreyfuss and Tony Slattery. He also interviewed Robbie Williams, who suffered with unipolar depression, and they discussed the differences and similarities of their mental health experiences and diagnoses. He is involved with the mental health charity Stand to Reason and is president of Mind. In 2013, he said that, in the previous year, he had started taking medication for the first time, in an attempt to control his condition. In 2018, alongside Nadiya Hussain and Olly Alexander, Fry was part of Sport Relief's attempt to raise awareness of mental health.

In 1995, while appearing in the West End play Cell Mates, Fry had a nervous breakdown and walked out of the production, causing its early closure and incurring the displeasure of co-star Rik Mayall and playwright Simon Gray. Fry went missing for several days and contemplated suicide. He later said that he would have killed himself if he had not had "the option of disappearing". He abandoned the idea and left the United Kingdom by ferry, eventually resurfacing in Belgium. Fry has attempted suicide on a number of occasions, most recently in 2012. In an interview with Richard Herring in 2013, Fry said that he had attempted suicide the previous year while filming abroad. He said that he took a "huge number of pills and a huge [amount] of vodka" and had to be brought back to the UK to be "looked after".

In January 2008, Fry broke his arm while filming Last Chance to See in Brazil. While climbing aboard a boat, he slipped between it and the dock, and, stopping himself from falling into the water, his body weight snapped his right humerus. The resulting vulnerability to his radial nerve – which affects use of the arm – was not diagnosed until he saw a consultant in the UK.

Appearing on the BBC's Top Gear in 2009, Fry had lost a significant amount of weight, and explained that he had shed a total of 6 stone (84 lb; 38 kg). He attributed the weight loss to walking while listening to audiobooks. Fry is between 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) and 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) in height. Fry has prosopagnosia ("face blindness").

In February 2018, Fry announced that he was recovering from an operation to treat prostate cancer, involving the removal of the prostate and 11 adjacent lymph nodes. He described the cancer as aggressive and said that early intervention had saved his life.

Views on religion

Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion, and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in gods. In his first autobiography, he described how he once considered ordination to the Anglican priesthood, but came to the conclusion that he "couldn't believe in God, because [he] was fundamentally Hellenic in [his] outlook". He has stated that religion can have positive effects: "Sometimes belief means credulity, sometimes an expression of faith and hope which even the most sceptical atheist such as myself cannot but find inspiring." Fry claims to have been expelled from Salt Lake City, Utah, because of a joke made about doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 2009, The Guardian published a letter from Fry addressing his younger self, explaining how his future is soon to unfold, reflecting on the positive progression towards gay acceptance and openness around him, and yet not everywhere, while warning on how "the cruel, hypocritical and loveless hand of religion and absolutism has fallen on the world once more". Later that year, he and Christopher Hitchens participated in an "Intelligence Squared" debate in which they argued against Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan, who supported the view that the Catholic Church was a force for good. Fry and Hitchens argued that the church did more harm than good, and were declared the victors after an audience vote. Fry attacked the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality and denounced its wealth.

In 2010, Fry was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one's colours to the mast as a humanist." Later that year, Fry joined 54 other public figures in signing an open letter published in The Guardian stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom being a state visit. On 22 February 2011, Fry was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University.

When interviewed in 2015 by the Irish broadcaster Gay Byrne, Fry was asked what he would say if he came face-to-face with God, to which he replied: "Bone cancer in children: what's that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that's not our fault? It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?" Within days, the video was viewed over five million times. Fry later stated he did not refer to any specific religion: "I said quite a few things that were angry at this supposed God. I was merely saying things that Bertrand Russell and many finer heads of the mind have said for many thousands of years, going all the way back to the Greeks." "Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac." In May 2017, it was announced that Fry, along with broadcaster RTÉ, were under criminal investigation for blasphemy under the Defamation Act 2009, following a complaint from a member of the public about the broadcast: the case was dropped after Gardaí confirmed that they had not been able to locate a sufficient number of offended people. The following year, in 2018, the article on blasphemy was removed from the Irish Constitution following a referendum.

Ventures

Narration

Fry is known for his extensive voice-over work; he read all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings, narrated Paddington Bear audiobooks, narrated the video game series LittleBigPlanet and Birds of Steel, narrated an animated series of explanations of the laws of cricket and narrated a series of animations about humanism for Humanists UK.

Twitter

Fry wielded a considerable amount of influence through his use of Twitter. He was frequently asked to promote various charities and causes, often inadvertently causing their websites to crash because of the volume of traffic generated by his large number of followers; as Fry noted on his website: "Four thousand hits a second all diving down the pipeline at the same time for minutes on end." He used his influence to recommend underexposed musicians and authors (who often saw large increases in web hits and sales) and to raise awareness of contemporary issues in the world of media and politics, notably the dropping of an injunction against The Guardian and public anger over Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir's article on the death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately.

In November 2009, Fry's Twitter account reached one million followers. He commemorated the million-followers milestone with a humorous video blog in which a 'Step Hen Fry' clone speaks from the year 2034, where MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have combined to form 'Twit on MyFace'. In November 2010, he welcomed his two-millionth follower with a blog entry detailing his opinions and experiences of Twitter. On 11 March 2012, Fry noted his passing of the four-million-followers mark with a tweet: "Lordy I've breasted the 4 million followers tape. Love you all. Yes even YOU. But let's dedicate today to Douglas Adams's diamond jubilee". As of June 2021 he had 12.4 million followers.

Fry had a history of temporarily distancing himself from the social networking site which began when he received criticism in October 2009. However, he retracted the announcement that he would be leaving the following day. In October 2010, Fry left Twitter for a few days, with a farewell message of "Bye bye", following press criticism of a quote taken from an interview he had given. After returning, he explained that he had left Twitter to "avoid being sympathised with or told about an article" he "would otherwise never have got wind of". The methods Fry uses on Twitter have been criticised. On 15 February 2016, Fry deleted his Twitter account after receiving criticism for a tweet commenting on Jenny Beavan's outfit choice at that year's BAFTAs where she received an award for costume design. Fry alluded to this on an April 2016 episode of The Rubin Report in which he criticised groupthink mentality and stated that his return to Twitter was a "maybe". He returned to Twitter in August 2016. He left Twitter again in November 2022, joining Mastodon that same month.

Sport

In August 2010, Fry joined the board of directors at Norwich City Football Club. A lifelong fan of "the Canaries" and a regular visitor to Carrow Road, he said, on being appointed, "Truly this is one of the most exciting days of my life, and I am as proud and pleased as I could be." Fry stepped down from his Board position in January 2016, to take up a new position as "Norwich City Ambassador". Fry said, "My five years in the role have been an honour and a privilege beyond almost anything I can remember. I wish I could take credit for ushering the club up from League One to the Premiership during that time on the Board. Actually, I'm going to. It was all me. It can't have been a coincidence ... But now I'm so happy to relinquish my seat on the board to Thomas Smith and to engage as fully as I can in the role of ambassador for Norwich City." In February 2014, Fry became the honorary president of Proud Canaries, a supporters' group for Norwich City's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender fans.

Fry succeeded Clare Connor to become president of Marylebone Cricket Club on 1 October 2022, relinquishing the role after one year to his successor Mark Nicholas in 2023.

Business

In 2008, Fry formed SamFry Ltd, with long-term collaborator Andrew Sampson to produce and fund new material and to manage his official website. Fry is the co-owner, with Gina Carter and Sandi Toksvig, of Sprout Pictures, an independent film and television company.

In 2016, Fry launched Pindex, "a self-funded online platform that creates and curates educational videos and infographics for teachers and students", founded and run by a four-person team.

Charity

In 2008, Fry appeared in a film made by the Free Software Foundation to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the GNU Project to create a completely free operating system. In the film, Fry explains the principles of software freedom central to the development of the Linux and GNU software projects. For the Comic Relief telethon in 2011, Fry was one of four celebrities who represented a new flavour of Walkers crisps: Stephen Fry Up, with the flavour inspired by the full English breakfast (also known as a 'fry up'). In 2014, Fry designed a Paddington Bear statue, one of fifty located around London prior to the release of the film Paddington, which was auctioned to raise funds for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

Fry is a supporter of nature and wildlife conservation. He has been the president of the Great Fen Project since 2006 and vice-president of international NGO Fauna and Flora International since 2009. Fry has also expressed support for action on climate change and activist group Extinction Rebellion, and has criticized climate change denial.

In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fry appeared in a sketch alongside Prince William for a charity show titled The Big Night In on BBC One. In the lighthearted sketch, Fry reprises his Blackadder character Lord Melchett, who is on a Zoom call with the then Duke of Cambridge as they talk about television shows such as EastEnders and Tiger King as well as homeschooling. The sketch had been put together by Comic Relief and Children in Need to raise money and keep people entertained during the lockdown. In March 2021, Fry narrated a short film for Cambridge Children's Hospital.

Fry has been the patron of UK audiobook charity Listening Books since 2005.