Sam Crane (actor)
Sam Crane is an English actor. On the stage, Crane has had leading roles in productions of Farinelli and the King, 1984, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Outside of theatre he has appeared on The Crown and co-directed the documentary Grand Theft Hamlet with his wife Pinny Grylls.
Background
Crane is the son of Richard Crane, a playwright, and theatre director Faynia Williams. He studied at Oxford University and LAMDA, where he won the Nicholas Hytner Award. He is married to filmmaker Pinny Grylls and they have a son and daughter.Career
Theatre
Crane played Farinelli in Claire van Kampen's Farinelli and the King opposite Mark Rylance at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse and reprised his role when the production transferred first to the Duke of York's Theatre and then to the Belasco Theatre on Broadway. He is also known for playing Winston Smith in Headlong's production of 1984 in the West End. Since 13 October 2022, Sam has been playing Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Palace Theatre in London.Film, television, and video games
In 2009, he played Fred Walters in the BBC's six-part drama series Desperate Romantics. In Ubisoft's 2015 video game Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Crane played Frederick Abberline. In 2017, he played Patrick Plunket in an episode of the Netflix series The Crown.Crane, alongside his wife Pinny Grylls, co-directed, executive produced, and acted in the Grand Theft Hamlet, a 2024 documentary film about a production of Hamlet entirely made within the game Grand Theft Auto Online. The film premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, where it won the Jury Award for best documentary feature, and Crane and Grylls later won Best debut director from the British Independent Film Awards.
Selected credits
Theatre
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as Harry Potter
- Farinelli and the King
- 1984 as Winston Smith
- Eternal Love as Bernard of Clairvaux
- The Humans as Tophole
- The Christmas Candle as Thomas Haddington
- Father Brown "The Mayor and the Magician" as William Knight
- New Tricks "Old School Ties" as Oliver Lebbon
- Casualty "Place of Safety" as Jim
- Bedlam as Laurence
- Henry IV Part I & II as Hotspur and Pistol
- ...some trace of her
- The Odyssey
- DNA/ The Miracle as Phil/ Mr Rodgers
- Kebab as Bogdan
- Othello as Roderigo
- Ghosts as Oswald
- Carrie's War as Albert
- Midnight Cowboy
- The Pretenders
- Silverland as Mikey
- And Then There Were None as Anthony
- Major Barbara
- Rabbit as Spin
- A Little Requiem for Kantor
- Paddington, as Jonathan Brown co-starring Peter Fletcher as Paddington Bear.