Jack Lowden

Jack Andrew Lowden (born 2 June 1990) is a Scottish actor. Following a four-year stage career, his first major international onscreen success was in the 2016 BBC miniseries War & Peace, which led to starring roles in feature films. Starring as River Cartwright in the Apple TV series Slow Horses since 2020, he has received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Lowden starred as Eric Liddell in the 2012 play Chariots of Fire in London. In 2014, he won an Olivier Award and the Ian Charleson Award for his role as Oswald in Richard Eyre's 2013 adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts.

In 2013, he began to have substantial roles in British television series and feature films, including The Tunnel (2013) and '71 (2014), and had leading roles in the BBC miniseries The Passing Bells (2014) and War & Peace (2016). Other screen roles include the title role as golfing legend Tommy Morris in Tommy's Honour (2016); the starring role of Morrissey in the biopic England Is Mine (2017); a main-cast role as an RAF fighter-pilot in Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017); a starring role in the Scottish Highlands thriller Calibre (2018, for which he won the British Academy Scotland Award for Best Film Actor); Lord Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots (2018); a starring role as a plantation owner in 19th-century Jamaica in the 2018 BBC miniseries The Long Song; and as Zak "Zodiac" Bevis in the 2019 comedy-drama WWE film Fighting with My Family.

Early life and education Jack Lowden was born in Essex in 1990 to Scottish parents. His parents went to England to have IVF treatment for the pregnancies and births of Jack and his younger brother Calum.

At the age of 10, Lowden's parents enrolled him in the Scottish Youth Theatre in Edinburgh.

Lowden attended Earlston High School, where he starred as Buddy Holly in Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story and performed in various concerts. He was inspired to pursue acting professionally after seeing the play Black Watch on its first run in 2007. While in high school, he studied during summer school at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He also performed regularly at the Galashiels Amateur Operatic Society, where he played the lead in a 2008 production of The Boy Friend.

Career

Early beginnings (2009–2011) In 2009, at the age of 18, Lowden appeared in a television advertisement for Irn-Bru, sending up High School Musical. In 2010 he had a small part as the character Nick Fairclough on an episode of the Glasgow-set television series Being Victor.

In 2010–11 Lowden was the lead character, Cammy, in the National Theatre of Scotland's revival production of the Olivier Award-winning play Black Watch. The play is an incisive and topical look at the harsh reality of war, and depicts soldiers of the legendary historic Scottish Black Watch regiment serving in Iraq. UK reviewers deemed Lowden "a clearly hugely promising young actor" "who carries off this amazing start to his career with assurance and maturity". In the U.S., The Washington Post described him as "quietly charismatic" and a "stand-out"; this was echoed by the Chicago Sun-Times, which called him "easily charismatic"; and the Chicago Tribune noted his "rich and finely detailed work".

Increased recognition on stage (2012–2015)

From 9 May 2012 to 5 January 2013 Lowden starred as Scottish runner and missionary Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire, the stage adaptation of the film of the same name. The Olympic-themed play, created and produced specifically in honour of the 2012 London Summer Olympics, opened at London's Hampstead Theatre and transferred to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End in June 2012. Lowden's performance was widely praised, including by Libby Purves in The Times.

Onscreen, in 2012 he appeared in the ITV drama Mrs Biggs as Alan Wright, who has an affair with Charmian Biggs and gets her pregnant. In 2013, he played the pivotal role of the lead character's son, Adam, in the television series The Tunnel.

In 2014, Lowden received both the Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and also the Ian Charleson Award, for his role as Oswald in Richard Eyre's adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts. The production ran from September 2013 to March 2014, opening at the Almeida Theatre and then transferring in December to the West End at Trafalgar Studios. A filmed February 2014 performance of the production screened in more than 275 UK and Irish cinemas on 26 June 2014.

In June 2014 Screen Daily named Lowden one of the UK Stars of Tomorrow.

He performed Orestes in Electra at the Old Vic in the autumn of 2014. The production starred Kristin Scott Thomas as his sister Electra, and Diana Quick played their mother Clytemnestra. Previews began 22 September, the official opening was 1 October, and the run continued in a limited engagement through to 20 December 2014.

On television he starred as one of the two leads in the 2014 World War I BBC drama series The Passing Bells. It is the story of two youths, one from Germany and one from the UK, who enlist as soldiers at the beginning of the war.

Breakthrough (2016–2019) Lowden portrayed Nikolai Rostov, one of the main characters, in the 2016 BBC miniseries War & Peace. The 6-part miniseries, which was broadcast around the world and positively reviewed, garnered Lowden the most exposure he had had thus far in his career.

In film he played the title role in Tommy's Honour (2016), about legendary Scottish golfing champion Old Tom Morris, played by Peter Mullan, and his complex and bittersweet relationship with his son Tom "Tommy" Morris Jr.; Lowden was nominated for Best Film Actor at the 2016 BAFTA Scotland Awards for his performance. He also portrayed British politician Tony Benn in a supporting role in A United Kingdom, a 2016 film about Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams Khama. In another supporting role, he was one of star Rachel Weisz's character's attorneys in Denial (2016), a fact-based legal-drama film about Holocaust denial which also starred Andrew Scott.

In April 2016, he was a finalist in the entertainment category at the 11th Young Scot Awards. In November 2016, the UK arts and entertainment magazine The List featured Lowden as one of The Hot 100 2016.

He played a Royal Air Force fighter pilot, one of the leading roles, in Christopher Nolan's WorldWarII film Dunkirk, released in July 2017. And he portrayed Morrissey in a biopic of the singer titled England Is Mine, written and directed by Mark Gill; the film, which co-stars Jessica Brown Findlay, premiered at the closing gala of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 2 July 2017 and went into wide release in August 2017.

Lowden and actress Saoirse Ronan (left) co-starred together in Mary Queen of Scots (2018) and co-produced The Outrun (2024). They also married in 2024.

He co-starred with Martin McCann in a Scottish thriller, Calibre (2018), which began filming in November 2016, debuted at the 2018 Edinburgh International Film Festival, and was released globally on Netflix on 29 June 2018. Guy Lodge in Variety wrote of his performance, " lead performance of through-the-wringer commitment by rising Scots star Jack Lowden. ... An Olivier Award-winning stage actor now settling into a quietly potent, empathetic screen presence, Lowden impressively holds it together through all these key changes, even when his character emphatically does not." Lowden won the 2018 British Academy Scotland Award for Best Film Actor for the performance.

On stage, from 28 September to 24 November 2018, Lowden starred opposite Hayley Atwell in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, at the Donmar Warehouse in London, directed by Josie Rourke. It was a unique gender-reversal production of the work, and he and Atwell alternated the roles of Angelo and Isabella during the play. On television, in December 2018 he co-starred with Tamara Lawrance and Hayley Atwell, in a three-part BBC adaptation of Andrea Levy's novel The Long Song, about a slave on a sugar plantation in 19th-century Jamaica; the piece was filmed on location in the Dominican Republic.

He portrayed Lord Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots (2018), opposite Saoirse Ronan and directed by theatre director Josie Rourke, and Zak "Zodiac" Bevis in the 2019 comedy-drama WWE film Fighting with My Family, opposite Florence Pugh and directed by Steve Merchant. He appeared as FBI agent Crawford in the Al Capone biopic Capone (2020), starring his Dunkirk co-star Tom Hardy.

In February 2019, Lowden teamed up with Beta Cinema to form his own production company, Reiver Pictures, based in Edinburgh. This led to the production of a psychological thriller, Kindred, in which Lowden also starred alongside Tamara Lawrance and Fiona Shaw. He reprised his role for seasons two, three, four, and five. He was nominated at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2024 as Outstanding Supporting Actor in A Drama Series.

He joined Duncan Jones' upcoming film Rogue Trooper. In April 2025, it was announced that Lowden was cast as Mr. Darcy in Netflix's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, to be released in 2026. Lowden will star as Bernie Gunther in Apple TV's period detective series Berlin Noir, based on Philip Kerr's novels.

Personal life From 2019 to 2021, Lowden lived in Leith, Edinburgh, before moving back to the Scottish Borders in May 2021. He supports Scottish independence.

Since 2018, Lowden has been in a relationship with Irish actress Saoirse Ronan, his co-star in Mary Queen of Scots. In July 2024, Irish Independent reported that the couple had gotten married in Edinburgh. Ronan gave birth to their first child in September 2025.

Lowden is a supporter of Broxburn Athletic Football Club and occasionally attends their matches. He presented a man of the match award to Broxburn player Calum Heath after a win away at Crossgates Primrose.

Filmography +Key Denotes projects that have not yet been released

Film Year Title Role Notes 2013 U Want Me 2 Kill Him? Henry 2014 Ghosts Oswald Alving Filmed performance of West End play '71 Thompson "Thommo" 2016 Tommy's Honour Tom Morris Jr. A United Kingdom Tony Benn Denial James Libson 2017 England Is Mine Morrissey Dunkirk Collins 2018 Calibre Vaughn Mary Queen of Scots Lord Darnley 2019 Fighting with My Family Zak "Zodiac" Bevis 2020 Capone Stirling H. Crawford Kindred Thomas Also co-producer 2021 Benediction Siegfried Sassoon Also executive producer 2024 The Outrun Producer 2025 Tornado Little Sugar The Fifth Step Luka Filmed performance of West End play Ella McCay Ryan Newell 2026 Vote Gavin Lyle Gavin Lyle Short film Rogue Trooper Gunnar (voice)

Television Year Title Role Notes 2010 Being Victor Nick Fairclough Episode: "Episode 3" 2012 Mrs Biggs Alan Wright 2 episodes 2013 The Tunnel Adam Roebuck 10 episodes 2014 The Passing Bells Michael Television miniseries 2015 Wolf Hall Thomas Wyatt Television miniseries 2016 War & Peace Nikolai Rostov Television miniseries 2017 The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth Hunter Television pilot 2018 The Long Song Robert Goodwin Television miniseries 2020 Small Axe Ian Macdonald Anthology film series; episode: "Mangrove" 2022–present Slow Horses River Cartwright 30 episodes 2023–2025 The Gold Kenneth Noye 10 episodes 2024 The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Forodwaith Sauron Episode: "Elven Kings Under the Sky" 2026 Fitzwilliam Darcy Post-production Bernhard "Bernie" Gunther Post-production

Video games Year Title Role Notes 2016 Battlefield 1 T. E. Lawrence

Theatre credits Year Title Role Director Playwright Theatre 2010–2011 Black Watch Cammy John Tiffany Gregory Burke National Theatre of Scotland UK/U.S. Tour 2012 Chariots of Fire Eric Liddell Edward Hall Mike Bartlett Colin Welland Hampstead Theatre Gielgud Theatre 2013–2014 Ghosts Oswald Alving Richard Eyre Henrik Ibsen Almeida Theatre Trafalgar Studios 2014 Electra Orestes Ian Rickson Sophocles Old Vic 2018 Measure for Measure Angelo Isabella Josie Rourke William Shakespeare Donmar Warehouse 2024–2025 The Fifth Step Luka Finn Den Hertog David Ireland National Theatre of Scotland @sohoplace

Awards and nominations Year Award Category Work Result 2014 Laurence Olivier Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role Ghosts Ian Charleson Awards Ghosts 2016 Young Scot Awards Entertainment War & Peace British Academy Scotland Awards Best Actor in Film Tommy's Honour 2018 British Academy Scotland Awards Best Actor in Film Calibre 2019 British Academy Scotland Awards Best Actor in Film Mary Queen of Scots 2020 British Academy Film Awards EE Rising Star Award Himself 2021 British Academy Scotland Awards Best Actor in Television Small Axe: Mangrove 2022 Trophée Chopard Honoree Himself British Academy Scotland Awards Best Actor in Film Benediction 2023 British Academy Television Awards Best Supporting Actor Slow Horses 2024 British Academy Television Awards Best Supporting Actor Slow Horses Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Slow Horses British Academy Scotland Awards Favourite Scot on Screen Slow Horses British Independent Film Awards Best British Independent Film The Outrun 2025 Golden Globe Awards Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role on Television Slow Horses British Academy Film Awards Outstanding British Film The Outrun Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Slow Horses British Academy Scotland Awards Best Feature Film The Outrun 2026 National Film Awards Best Supporting Actor in a TV Series Slow Horses Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Slow Horses