Samuel West
Samuel Alexander Joseph West is an English actor, theatre director, and narrator. He has directed on stage and radio, and worked as an actor in theatre, film, television, and radio.
West was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his portrayal of Leonard Bast in the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel Howards End, and was later nominated for the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of the title role in Rupert's Land. In 2010, he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jeffrey Skilling in Lucy Prebble's Enron. He has appeared as reciter with orchestras and performed at the Last Night of the Proms. He has narrated several documentary series, including five for the BBC about the Second World War.
West currently stars as Siegfried Farnon in the Channel 5 remake of the veterinary drama series All Creatures Great and Small.
Early life and education
Samuel Alexander Joseph West was born on 19 June 1966 in Hammersmith, London, the elder son of the actress Prunella Scales and the actor Timothy West, and the grandson of the actor Lockwood West.West was educated at Alleyn's School and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where he studied English literature and was president of the Experimental Theatre Club. West originally intended to attend Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, but chose instead to focus on his career after he was cast as King Caspian in the BBC's 1989 series The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Career
Stage
West made his London stage debut in February 1989 at the Orange Tree Theatre, playing Michael in Cocteau's Les Parents Terribles, of which critic John Thaxter wrote: "He invests the role with a warmth and validity that silences sniggers that could so easily greet a lesser performance of this difficult role, and he lets us share the tumbling emotions of a juvenile torn between romantic first love and filial duty." Since then, West has appeared frequently on stage; he played Valentine in the first production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the National Theatre in 1993, and later spent two seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company playing the title roles in Richard II and Hamlet, both directed by Steven Pimlott.In 2002, West made his stage directorial debut with The Lady's Not for Burning at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester. He succeeded Michael Grandage as artistic director of Sheffield Theatres from 2005 to 2007. During his time as artistic director, West revived the controversial The Romans in Britain, and also directed As You Like It as part of the RSC's Complete Works Festival. West left Sheffield when the theatre closed for refurbishment in 2007, and made his West End directorial debut with the first major revival of Dealer's Choice following its transferral to the Trafalgar Studios. He also continued his acting career: in 2007 he appeared alongside Toby Stephens and Dervla Kirwan in Betrayal at the Donmar Warehouse.
In 2008, West played Harry in the Donmar revival of T. S. Eliot's Family Reunion, and in 2009 he starred as Jeffrey Skilling in Enron by Lucy Prebble. His 2008 production of Waste at the Almeida Theatre was chosen by The Times as one of its "Productions of the Decade". From November 2012 to January 2013, he appeared as Astrov in a production of Uncle Vanya at the Vaudeville Theatre. He played Ivanov and Trigorin in the Chichester Festival Theatre's Young Chekhov Season from September 2015, alongside Nina Sosanya, Anna Chancellor, and James McArdle.
In 2023, West played Hugh Delavois in Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer's comedy play It’s Headed Straight Towards Us at the Park Theatre, London opposite Rufus Hound. In late 2024, West returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Malvolio in Prasanna Puwanarajah's production of Twelfth Night opposite Gwyneth Keyworth, Freema Agyeman and Bally Gill. He will reprise the role in late 2025 as the production transfers to the Barbican Centre, London.
Film
West appeared in the film Reunion with Jason Robards and Christien Anholt as an aristocratic boy who befriends the son of a Jewish doctor in 1930s Germany. West played the lower-middle-class clerk Leonard Bast in the Merchant Ivory film adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel Howards End, featuring Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anthony Hopkins. For this role, he was nominated for best supporting actor at the 1993 BAFTA Film Awards. West appeared with Thompson again in the film Carrington.In voice-over, West provided the voice of Pongo in 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, replacing Rod Taylor.
West's film career has continued with roles in films such as Franco Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre, Notting Hill, Iris, Van Helsing and Darkest Hour. In 2004, he appeared in the year's highest rated mini-series on German television, Die Nibelungen, which was released in the United States in 2006 as Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King. In 2012, he played King George VI in Hyde Park on Hudson.
Television
West has appeared in many long-running series: Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead and Poirot, as well as one-off dramas. He played Anthony Blunt in Cambridge Spies, a BBC production about the four British spies, starring alongside Toby Stephens, Tom Hollander and Rupert Penry-Jones. He reprised his role as Blunt in "Olding", the premiere episode of the third season of The Crown released in 2019.In 2006, West took the lead role in a BBC production of Random Quest adapted from the short story by John Wyndham and the next year played Edward Heath in Margaret Thatcher – The Long Walk to Finchley, also for the BBC. In 2010 he played Peter Scabius in the televised adaptation of William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart, while in 2011 he starred as Zak Gist in the ITV series Eternal Law. In addition, he appeared in the BBC sitcom As Time Goes By, as Terry in the episode "We'll Always Have Paris".
West played Frank Edwards in the ITV drama Mr Selfridge, and Sir Walter Pole in the 2015 BBC adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.
West stars in the Channel Five series All Creatures Great and Small as Siegfried Farnon. A second six-episode series and Christmas special was broadcast in 2021, followed by a third season airing in late 2022. As of 2025, it has run for six series.
Between 2022 and 2025, in seasons 1, 2, 3, and 5 of the popular spy drama Slow Horses that starred Gary Oldman, Jack Lowden, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jonathan Pryce, and Saskia Reeves, West appeared as Peter Judd MP, a "ruthlessly ambitious" right-wing Conservative politician who is later promoted to Home Secretary.
Radio
West is regularly heard on radio as a reader or reciter and has performed in many radio dramas, including Otherkin by Laura Wade, Present Laughter by Noël Coward, Len Deighton's Bomber, Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, Michael Frayn's Here, The Meaning of Zong by Giles Terera and The Homecoming as Lenny to Harold Pinter's Max.In 2011, he made his radio directing debut with a production of Money by Edward Bulwer-Lytton on BBC Radio 3.
Personal life
West has appeared alongside his actor parents on several occasions: with his mother Prunella Scales in Howards End and Stiff Upper Lips, and with his father Timothy West on stage in A Number, Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2. In two films, Sam and his father played the same character at different ages.In Edward the Seventh, West and his brother Joseph played young sons of the title character, who was played by their father. In 2002, all three family members performed in Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale at the St Magnus Festival on Orkney, and in 2006 they gave a rehearsed reading of the Harold Pinter play Family Voices as part of the Sheffield Theatres Pinter season.
West became the patron of Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus in February 2008, having been the narrator for a concert of theirs in February 2002. He is also a patron of London children's charity Scene & Heard, Eastside Educational Trust and Mousetrap Theatre Projects.
While at university, West was a member of the Socialist Workers Party, and later briefly the Socialist Alliance. West was an outspoken critic of the New Labour government of Tony Blair and their involvement in the Iraq War. On 26 March 2011, West spoke at the TUC March for the Alternative.
West has written essays on Richard II for the Cambridge University Press series Players of Shakespeare, on Hamlet for Michael Dobson's CUP study Performing Shakespeare's Tragedies Today and on Shakespeare and Love and Voice and Radio for BBC Radio 3.
West has also published articles on Harold Pinter, Caryl Churchill and the Shipping Forecast. He frequently writes and speaks in public about arts funding. West has collected stamps since childhood and owns more than 200 Two Shilling Blues.
In 2013, West was one of the judges for the Forward Prizes for Poetry. In December 2014, he appeared on two programmes for Christmas University Challenge, as part of a team of alumni from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
West is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and a trustee and previous Chair of the Campaign for the Arts. He was a member of the council of the British Actors' Union Equity from 1996 to 2000 and 2008–2014. He is a keen birdwatcher, and an Ambassador for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
In 2007, West began living with playwright Laura Wade, but in 2011 the couple temporarily split up. In 2013, West was cast in a minor role in The Riot Club, the film version of Wade's play, Posh, and in 2014 the couple had a daughter. In August 2017, the couple had a second daughter.
West is a supporter of AFC Wimbledon.
West is a patron of the Wilfred Owen Association which commemorates Owen's life and poetry.