Will Attenborough
Will Grant Oliver Attenborough (born 26 June 1991) is a British actor. He played the lead role in Jeremy Herrin's production of Another Country in the West End, and starred opposite Nicole Kidman in Michael Grandage's production of Photograph 51.[1] He has had roles in Sam Mendes-produced The Hollow Crown, Channel 4's Utopia, Home Fires, Denial starring Rachel Weisz, and the Oscar-winning Dunkirk.[2] His grandfather, actor-director Richard Attenborough, appeared in Dunkirk (1958).
Attenborough won the London storytelling Championship of The Moth in 2018.[3]
In 2019, he took the role of Ed Faulkner Jr – a veteran of the Battle of Kamdesh – in The Outpost, an adaptation of Jake Tapper's book on the War in Afghanistan.[4] He currently stars in BBC One's Our Girl as Oliver Hurst. [5]
Personal life
He is the son of theatre director Michael Attenborough and actress Karen Lewis. He is the grandson of actor-director Richard Attenborough and actress Sheila Sim, as well as the great-nephew of naturalist David Attenborough.[6] Will Attenborough is Jewish through his mother's side.[7] His great-grandparents adopted two Jewish girls, Irene and Helga Bajach, after they escaped pre-war Germany as Kindertransport refugees.[8] Attenborough identifies as queer.
Politics
Attenborough is an advocate for Fossil Free UK and helped secure Mayor of London Sadiq Khan's commitment to divest City Hall's £4.8bn pension fund of fossil fuel stocks.[9] In 2017, Attenborough launched a campaign, along with actress Leila Mimmack and Academy Award winner Mark Rylance, for Equity, the performers' union, to move its fossil fuel investments into clean energy.[10]
References
- ^ "Will Attenborough shines in the Cambridge spies drama" The Guardian, 6 April 2014; "Will Attenborough in revival of Another Country" Evening Standard, 4 Feb 2014;"Introducing... Will Attenborough" Official London Theatre, 4 April 2014; "Another Country, Review" Daily Telegraph, 4 April 2014; "Cambridge spies play impresses critics" BBC News, 4 April 2015; "Nicole Kidman a chilly force at center of 'Photograph 51' in London" Chicago Tribune, 15 September 2015; "Will Attenborough says Rosalind Franklin deserves a bigger place in history" GetWestLondon 6 Oct 2015; "Nicole Kidman in the ecstasy of scientific discovery" The Guardian 14 Sept 2015
- ^ "20 Questions: Another Country's Will Attenborough" WhatsOnStage, 28 March 2014; "Daniel Ryan: ‘Will kept leaving Home Fires to get on a train and go back to Nicole Kidman’" What's On TV, 21 April 2015; "Dunkirk" Empire, 29 Dec 2016; "Will Attenborough brings 'Dunkirk' to life on Film-ish" FUBAR Radio, 6 Feb 2018
- ^ "Ian Boldsworth Show: Andy Bell, Will Attenborough and Ruby Bentall" FUBAR Radio, 18 Mar 2019
- ^ "Ed will live on now" Times-News, Oct 10 2013; "Jake Tapper's 'Outpost' Film Enlists Scott Eastwood, Orlando Bloom to Star" The Hollywood Reporter May 3rd 2018
- ^ https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000gpkw
- ^ "Richard Attenborough's grandson to make West End debut" Daily Express 4 Feb 2014
- ^ "The Jewish Attenborough ‘siblings’ changed our lives" Jewish News 2 Feb 2020
- ^ "The Attenborough sisters who escaped Hitler" The Times 30 Nov 2008
- ^ "Lammy and Khan commit to divestment if elected as London mayor" The Guardian 27 Aug 2015
- ^ "Mark Rylance among actors to press Equity over fossil fuels" Financial Times 22 Oct 2017