Russell Tovey

Russell George Tovey (born 14 November 1981) is an English actor. He is best known for playing the role of werewolf George Sands in the BBC's supernatural comedy-drama Being Human, Rudge in both the stage and film versions of The History Boys, Steve in the BBC Three sitcom Him & Her, Kevin Matheson in the HBO original series Looking and its subsequent series finale television film Looking: The Movie, and Patrick Read in American Horror Story: NYC.

Early life Tovey was born on 14 November 1981 in Billericay, Essex to Carole. A. (née Haynes) and George. F. Tovey, who ran a Romford-based coach service taking passengers from Essex to Gatwick Airport. Tovey has an older brother, Daniel Peter Tovey. He attended Harold Court School in Harold Wood and Shenfield High School.

Tovey noted that as a boy he "was an avid collector of various things and prone to participating in fads." He originally auditioned for the role of Crowther but agreed to act the part of Rudge after Bennett promised to beef up the role. before it was announced that the Eleventh Doctor would be played by Matt Smith. Tovey reprised his role as Midshipman Alonso Frame in the 2009-10 Doctor Who Christmas special, "The End of Time".

Tovey played werewolf George Sands, one of three supernatural housemates in the drama Being Human. The pilot premiered on BBC Three on 18 February 2008. A six-part series was commissioned with the first episode broadcast on 25 January 2009. Tovey left the regular cast of the show at the start of the fourth season on 5 February 2012. In November 2012 AudioGO Ltd released an audiobook version of Mark Michalowski's Being Human tie-in novel Chasers, which is narrated by Tovey.

In a 2008 interview in Attitude, Tovey expressed his desire to play darker roles: "really dark, fucked-up characters... like drag queens, rent boys, someone who has been abused, a rapist", though noting that he does not consider himself "fucked-up".

In March 2009, the actor played a leading role in A Miracle at the Royal Court Theatre as Gary Trudgill, a British soldier returning to Norfolk from abroad. On 8 March 2009 he presented the Award for Best Actress to Margaret Tyzack for her performance in The Chalk Garden at the Laurence Olivier Awards in Grosvenor House.

In 2009, Tovey worked on the film Huge and starred in two television pilots: Young, Unemployed and Lazy (a BBC Three sitcom), renamed to Him & Her in 2010, and The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (part of Comedy Showcase), a Channel 4 comedy with Spike Jonze and Will Arnett, written by David Cross and Shaun Pye.

He also appeared in shorts: Drop, which premièred at the 2009 Rushes Soho Shorts Film Festival) Roar, which premiered at the Palm Springs Film Festival on 24 June 2009.

In 2011, he became the voice over/narrator for the BBC Three show Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents and its spinoffs, which ran for five series up to July 2015. Tovey narrated every episode aired.

Tovey played Budgie, one of Gavin's friends, in the BBC comedy-drama Gavin & Stacey. In January 2012, he appeared in the British crime drama Sherlock, playing Henry Knight in the episode "The Hounds of Baskerville". He had a lead role in the ITV sitcom The Job Lot which aired in 2013 and is set in a busy unemployment bureau in the West Midlands.

In 2013, Tovey signed on to appear in the American television series Looking, about a group of gay friends living in San Francisco area. Its 8-episode first season broadcast on HBO in 2014. Tovey was promoted to series regular for the second season.

In 2015, Tovey starred in Banished, a historical drama series written by Jimmy McGovern about a group of British convicts in Australia in the 18th century.

Also in 2015, Tovey made his first of many live appearances for arts and entertainment company Pin Drop Studio, reading a short story to an audience followed by an interview by Simon Oldfield.

In 2016, Tovey was cast in the ABC network thriller drama Quantico for the series regular role of Harry Doyle.

In April 2017, Tovey returned to the Royal National Theatre to appear in Marianne Elliot's revival of the Tony Kushner play Angels in America, opposite Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane.

In September 2017, it was revealed that Tovey would be voicing Ray Terrill / The Ray, a reporter who gains light-based powers after being exposed to a genetic light bomb, in the animated web series Freedom Fighters: The Ray on CW Seed. Tovey appeared in "Crisis on Earth-X", the Arrowverse crossover event between Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.

In 2019, Tovey co-starred in an ensemble cast on the show Years and Years, and appeared with Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen in the drama film The Good Liar.

Tovey was awarded the Culture Award at the ninth annual Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards.

It was announced in 2021 that Tovey had been cast in Allelujah, a film adaptation of Alan Bennett's play of the same name.

The following year, in 2022, Tovey started a role as Patrick Read in American Horror Story: NYC.

In 2024, Tovey starred as John O'Shea, Truman Capote's on-again-off-again lover, in FX's anthology series Feud: Capote vs. The Swans.

In July 2024, it was announced that Tovey would return to the Doctor Who universe as a new character in the spin-off series The War Between the Land and the Sea.

Other work Tovey is also an author, playwright and screenwriter. He has written three plays (all unperformed as of August 2010), and one of his short stories was published in women's magazine Company.

Tovey presents the podcast Talk Art alongside Robert Diament. The podcast is about the contemporary art world featuring interviews with artists such as Marina Abramović, Roberta Smith, and Ai Weiwei.

Russel Tovey appeared as a guest judge on Season 3, Episode 8 of the hit TV show, RuPaul's Drag Race UK.

Art collecting Tovey collects contemporary art, which he got into at the age of 21 when his parents bought him a Tracey Emin print that he admired, called Dog Brains. Aside from several works by Emin, his collection now also includes works by Wolfgang Tillmans, Jamian Juliano Villani, Shannon Ebner, Rebecca Warren, Joyce Pensato, Amoako Boafo, Walter Price, Louis Fratino, Doron Langberg, Carmen Herrera, Rose Wylie, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Lisa Brice and Matias Faldbakken among others. Although he has been buying art since he was in his 20s, he considers himself to have been "properly collecting" since about 2010, with his collection now consisting of over 300 works of art.

Since 2018, Tovey has hosted a podcast called Talk Art with his friend, the gallerist Robert Diament of Carl Freedman gallery, in which the pair talk to their favourite artists, curators and art enthusiasts. In the over 120 episodes, guests have included Ryan Gander, Judy Chicago, Roberta Smith, Ai Weiwei, Marina Abramović, Rose Wylie, Anthony Cudahy and Ian Lewandowski, Zawe Ashton, Jenna Gribbon, Math Bass, Oscar yi Hou, Doron Langberg, Sharon Stone, Gus Van Sant, Nash Glynn, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and many more.

In 2019, Tovey guest curated Margate Now, an arts festival based in Margate.

Tovey was part of the jury of the 2021 Turner Prize.

Tovey was appointed the 2022 patron for the Art UK charity.

Personal life Tovey is gay. During his adolescent years, his family had difficulty accepting his sexual orientation.

From 2016, Tovey was in a relationship with rugby player and coach Steve Brockman. In March 2018, Tovey revealed the pair were engaged to be married, however, by June 2018, he confirmed they had split up. They reunited, but by 2023, it appeared they had broken up again.

In 2015, Tovey faced a social media backlash for comments regarding effeminate gay men made in an interview with The Observer, for which he subsequently apologized clarifying that the remarks did not reflect his actual views.

Filmography

Film Year Title Role Notes 2001 The Emperor's New Clothes Recruit 2006 The History Boys Peter Rudge 2009 In Passing Henry Travers Short film 2010 Huge Carl 2012 Grabbers Adam Smith The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! The Albino Pirate Voice (UK version) Tower Block Paul 2014 Effie Gray George Muppets Most Wanted Delivery Man Blackwood Jack Pride Tim Moomins on the Riviera Moomintroll Voice 2015 Stick Man Dog The Lady in the Van Young Man with Earring 2016 The Pass Jason Mindhorn Paul Melly 2017 The Hippopotamus Rupert Keynes 2018 Hymn of Hate Sergeant George May Short film 2019 The Good Liar Steven 2022 Allelujah Colin Colman 2023 Night of the Lotus Charlie Love AgainBilly Brooks 2025 Plainclothes Andrew Walters

Television

Radio and readings Year Title Role 2006 The History Boys Peter Rudge 2007 Rubbish Dan 2009 The Government Inspector Gendarme The Admirable Crichton Crichton Newfangle Newfangle Last Night, Another Soldier Briggsy The Richest Man in Britain Dom 2011 Countrysides Simon

Tovey has read several books for audio, notably a 2017 performance of The Picture of Dorian Gray. He is the narrator for the 20th anniversary edition audiobook of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, released in 2015. Also, since 2016, he is the reader for audiobooks of Liz Pichon's Tom Gates book series, starting from book 10, Super Good Skills (Almost...), taking over from Rupert Grint.

Awards and nominations