Peter Serafinowicz

Peter Serafinowicz
Serafinowicz at the July 22, 2010 Look Around You panel at the San Diego Comic-Con
Born	Peter Szymon Serafinowicz (1972-07-10) 10 July 1972 Liverpool, England, UK
Occupation	Actor, comedian, writer, composer, voice artist
Spouse(s)	Sarah Alexander

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz (/sɛrəˈfɪnəwɪtʃ/; born 10 July 1972) is an English actor, comedian, writer, voice artist and director. He is best known for dubbing the voice of Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and for appearing in a variety of British and American comedy shows.

Early life

Serafinowicz was born in Liverpool, to scaffolder Szymon Serafinowicz Jr. and post office worker Catherine, nee Geary. He attended Our Lady of the Assumption Roman Catholic Primary School and St Francis Xavier Secondary School. He lived in the Gateacre area of Liverpool until his early thirties, before he moved to London.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Acting and writing

Serafinowicz made his broadcasting debut in 1993 on Radio 1 show The Knowledge, a spoof documentary about the music industry. From there he went on to perform in Radio 4 shows Week Ending, Harry Hill's Fruit Corner, Grievous Bodily Radio, The Two Dannys and A Whole New Ball Game.

On 1 May 1997, he appeared in The Election Night Armistice as Moz Bingham, the fictional press secretary to the then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who verbally abuses and bullies the BBC's Nick Robinson in a spoof phone call over the politician's news coverage. In 1998 he appeared on TV in Comedy Nation and You are Here. He also had a role in the Simon Nye-penned sitcom How Do You Want Me?.

In 1999, he made a number of appearances in Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, playing principal character Tim Bisley's (Simon Pegg) arch-nemesis, Duane Benzie. He made another appearance in the series when it returned in 2001. In 2001 Serafinowicz took the lead in BBC Two sitcom World of Pub, playing the same character as he had done in the show's run on Radio 4. He was also in The Junkies, the world's first^{[citation needed]} Internet sitcom. In 2002 the critically acclaimed Look Around You, a series of 10-minute 1970s school science video spoofs, debuted on BBC Two in which Serafinowicz played a scientist. He co-wrote the show alongside Robert Popper, whom he met on the set of Spaced. The show returned in 2005 as a spoof of the 1980s show Tomorrow's World, with Serafinowicz playing Peter Packard, one of the presenters.

In 2003, he appeared in another Nye-written sitcom, Hardware, in which he played the affable Kenny. He reprised this role in the second series in 2004. Also in 2004 he appeared in British rom-zom-com (romantic-zombie-comedy) Shaun of the Dead, playing Pete, the tidy flatmate of principal characters Shaun and Ed. He also appeared in boxing film The Calcium Kid. In Sixty Six, the 2006 British film about a Jewish boy whose Bar Mitzvah is scheduled for the same day as the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, Serafinowicz plays Uncle Jimmy. In the week before the 2006 Academy Awards a video circulated on the Internet of a fake news item (called "O! News", a parody of E! News) about a new Oscar statue, in which Serafinowicz imitated Alan Alda, Paul McCartney and Al Pacino. A second O! News video later appeared, parodying the 2006 Apple Corps v. Apple Computer lawsuit. This attracted the interest of the BBC, and a pilot was commissioned for The Peter Serafinowicz Show. A full series was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007 (with a Christmas special in 2008). For his performance, Serafinowicz was presented with the Best Entertainer prize at the 2008 Rose d'Or ceremony. The series was also nominated for Best Comedy Programme at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards.

Serafinowicz had also made a number of guest appearances on television, including the comedy shows Smack the Pony and Hippies (both 1999), Black Books (2000), I'm Alan Partridge (2002) and Little Britain (2003), comedy drama Murder Most Horrid (1999) and ITV Drama series Marple (2005). He has made a number of guest appearances on both television and radio panel shows. He regularly appeared on The 99p Challenge and appeared on Have I Got News for You in 2005, 2006 and 2008 8 out of 10 Cats in 2005, and QI in 2003. He also appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on 19 October 2007, Would I Lie to You? on 8 August 2008 and 30 July 2010, and Never Mind the Buzzcocks on 15 October 2009.

In 2008, Serafinowicz was working with Robert Popper on a new television series, as well as a website, based on a spoof religion "Tarvuism" for US network Adult Swim. In 2009, he appeared in Universal Films' Couples Retreat as Sctanley, the manager of the Eden Resort, directed by Peter Billingsley.

It was announced early in 2010 that he would be playing Paul McCartney in the now-cancelled remake of the 1968 film Yellow Submarine. Later that year, Serafinowicz directed the music video for Hot Chip's song "I Feel Better", their second single from the album One Life Stand. He followed this up in 2012 when he directed the music video for the band's song "Night & Day", the first single from their album In Our Heads. The video starred Lara Stone, Terence Stamp and Reggie Watts.

In 2010, he co-starred with Will Arnett in the FOX sitcom Running Wilde, devised by Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz. It premiered on Fox on 21 September 2010, but was cancelled by the network after 13 episodes.

Voice artist

Serafinowicz has performed many adverts and voiceovers and is a talented impressionist. His highest profile role as a voice artist was as Darth Maul in the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, his voice overdubbing that of Ray Park, who portrayed Darth Maul in costume. This appearance was referred to during the second series of Spaced, as well as when he provided the voice for Darth Chef in an episode of South Park in 2006. He also did voice work on the Schools programme Look and Read, and more recently portrayed a cyber-terrorist on FX's Archer.

Serafinowicz pretended to be Terry Wogan in a 2003 Comic Relief spoof of Blankety Blank, which led to Wogan inviting Serafinowicz on occasion to appear on Wogan's Radio 2 breakfast programme as a guest (including an appearance during the final week of Wake Up to Wogan) and showcase said Wogan impersonation. Serafinowicz regularly utilises his array of impressions when performing.

On the BBC quiz show Would I Lie to You?, he revealed that he overdubbed the voice of Pelé in the English language version of his adverts to promote Viagra and raise the awareness of impotency. He revealed on Twitter that he provided a voiceover for the Ubisoft game Assassin's Creed III.

Composer

As a composer and musician, Serafinowicz produced virtually all of the music for Look Around You, under the name of Gelg.

Personal life

Serafinowicz is married to actress Sarah Alexander. Their first child, a son named Sam, was born in March 2007. They also have a daughter named Phoebe. Peter's brother, James, is a writer and director, and can be seen wearing his Liverpool Blue Coat School uniform at the beginning and end of each episode of the first series of Look Around You and is the person who always gets choked by the robot talk-show host Michael-6 during the Michael-6: The Robot Talk Show Host sketches of The Peter Serafinowicz Show. Serafinowicz's sister Helen is married to Graham Linehan.

In October 2007, Serafinowicz dropped his attempt to use the Human Rights Act to prevent the publication of details revealing his grandfather was the first man in Britain to go on trial for Nazi war crimes under the 1991 War Crimes Act. Szymon Serafinowicz Sr., was charged with allegedly murdering three Jews while a police chief during the Nazi-occupation of his native Poland in the Second World War. In 1997, the jury found Serafinowicz Sr. unfit for trial on grounds of dementia; he died later that year.

Filmography

Film

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1997	Doppelganger	Various characters	Short promo for Reebok
1998	You Are Here	Dr. Phil Phillips
1999	The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns	George Fitzpatrick
1999	Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace	Darth Maul Battle Droid Commander Gungan Scout	Voices
2003	Hello Friend	Additional voices	Short film
2004	Shaun of the Dead	Pete
2004	The Calcium Kid	Dave King
2006	Sixty Six	Uncle Jimmy Mr. Rubens, Snr. Football commentator
2007	Run Fatboy Run	TV commentator
2008	Tales of the Riverbank	Various characters
2009	Couples Retreat	Sctanley
2010	The Best and the Brightest	Clark Janowitz
2011	Killing Bono	Hammond
2014	Ibid	Michael

Television

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1998	Jack and the Beanstalk	Second henchman
1998	Comedy Nation	Various characters
1998	Europigeon	Terry Wogan
1998	Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round	Narrator
1998–99	How Do You Want Me?	Dean Yardley	12 episodes
1999	Murder Most Horrid	Tony Frost	Episode: "Dinner at Tiffany's"
1999	Smack the Pony	Various characters	2 episodes
1999	Sermon from St Albion's	Alastair Campbell	Episode 2.1
1999	Hippies	Robin Narrator	2 episodes
1999–2001	Spaced	Duane Benzie	3 episodes
2000	The Junkies	Big Al Narrator
2000	Black Books	Howell Granger	Episode: "The Big Lock-Out"
2001	World of Pub	Garry Various characters	6 episodes
2002	Ted and Alice	Mark
2002	I'm Alan Partridge	Tex	Episode: "Never Say Alan Again"
2002	15 Storeys High	Unknown	2 episodes
2002–05	Look Around You	Scientist Peter Packard	15 episodes
2003	Little Britain	Interviewer	Episode: "Biggest House of Cards"
2003–04	Hardware	Kenny	12 episodes
2006	Our Thirties	Austin
2006	Agatha Christie's Marple	Walter Fane	Episode: "Sleeping Murder"
2006	The IT Crowd	Newsreader Voiceover	2 episodes
2006	South Park	Darth Chef	Episode: "The Return of Chef"
2007–08	The Peter Serafinowicz Show	Various characters	7 episodes
2008	Would I Lie to You?	Himself	Panellist
2009	Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle	Voiceover	6 episodes
2009	Never Mind the Buzzcocks	Himself	Panellist
2010	Driver Dan's Story Train	Driver Dan
2010	Running Wilde	Fa'ad Shaoulin
2010	Whitechapel	DCI Cazanove
2010	Would I Lie to You?	Himself	Panellist
2011	Archer	George Spelvin	Season 2, Episode 6
2011	NTSF:SD:SUV::	SAM	Voice
2011	This is Jinsy	Eric Dunt The Great He	Episode: "Cupboards"
2011	Never Mind the Buzzcocks	Himself	Panellist
2012	Dawson Bros. Funtime	Voiceover
2012	Bad Sugar	Rolph	Series 1
2012	Childrens Hospital	Michael Caine	Voice Season 4.7: "British Hospital"
2012	American Dad!	Joe / Goran the Mutilator	Voice Episode: "Killer Vacation"
2013	Axe Cop	Dr. Doo Doo/Hitler	Multiple roles
2013	Fit	Brian Butterfield
2013	Anatole's Island	Narrator	Voiceover

Video games

Year	Game	Role
2003	Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior	Captain Ardias
2005	Star Wars: Battlefront II	Darth Maul
2012	Assassin's Creed III	unknown
2013	Lego City Undercover	Forrest Blackwell

Radio

• The 99p Challenge
• Lee and Herring
• Harry Hill's Fruit Corner
• The Two Dannys
• Danny Baker's All Day Breakfast Show
• The Sofa of Time, as the voice of Reamen Bod
• People Like Us
• It Is Rocket Science
• Peter Serafinowicz

External links

• Peter Serafinowicz at the Internet Movie Database
• Official website
• Peter Serafinowicz on Twitter
• Peter Serafinowicz on Facebook