
James McArdle
Acting
Biography
James McArdle is a Scottish actor from Glasgow. Having worked as a child actor in films, he trained at RADA, graduating in 2010. In his graduation year he appeared in Macbeth at The Globe and starred in the summer smash hit Spur of the Moment by Anya Reiss at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He then played in plays such as A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev, Chariots of Fire by Mike Bartlett and Platonov for which he won the Ian Charleson Award. On screens, he is known for movies such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), '71 (2014) and Salting the Battlefield (2014).
Known For

In an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue, Cassian Andor will discover the difference he can make in the struggle against the tyrannical Galactic Empire. He embarks on a path that is destined to turn him into a rebel hero.
Andor

Thirty years after defeating the Galactic Empire, Han Solo and his allies face a new threat from the evil Kylo Ren and his army of Stormtroopers.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens

A detective in a small Pennsylvania town investigates a local murder while trying to keep her life from falling apart.
Mare of Easttown

The origin story of Gal Dove, Don Logan, and Teddy Bass. Explore Gal and Don’s complicated relationship as Gal finds himself descending into the seductive madness of the London criminal world during the vibrant and volatile 1990s while falling in love with DeeDee.
Sexy Beast

Set against a sweeping Cornish landscape, two couples discover that their toddlers were switched at birth in a hospital mix-up, and face a horrifying dilemma: do they keep the sons they have raised and loved, or reclaim their biological child?
Playing Nice

In 1561, Mary Stuart, widow of the King of France, returns to Scotland, reclaims her rightful throne and menaces the future of Queen Elizabeth I as ruler of England, because she has a legitimate claim to the English throne. Betrayals, rebellions, conspiracies and their own life choices imperil both Queens. They experience the bitter cost of power, until their tragic fate is finally fulfilled.
Mary Queen of Scots

New Worlds is a four-part 2014 British television drama serial created by Peter Flannery and Martine Brant, a follow-up to their 2008 series The Devil's Whore, produced by Company Pictures for Channel 4. During the turbulent Restoration period of the 1600s, young, idealistic renegade Abe Goffe is determined to fight for England to become a true republic. A romantic at heart, he falls for privileged Beth—daughter of Countess of Abingdon Angelica Fanshawe—and brings her into his quest for a new future, transforming her from the innocent young woman she starts out as.
New Worlds

In 1840s England, palaeontologist Mary Anning and a young woman sent by her husband to convalesce by the sea develop an intense relationship. Despite the chasm between their social spheres and personalities, Mary and Charlotte discover they can each offer what the other has been searching for: the realisation that they are not alone. It is the beginning of a passionate and all-consuming love affair that will defy all social bounds and alter the course of both lives irrevocably.
Ammonite

If you could live your life time and again, would you ever get it right? Ursula dies and is reborn, living through turbulent times - but what is it she needs to stay alive for?
Life After Life

A love story in two films charts the very different challenges to happiness for Michael and Thomas in the aftermath of World War 2, and to Adam and Steve in the present day.
Man in an Orange Shirt

Johnny is a long-serving MI5 officer. His boss dies suddenly, leaving behind an inexplicable file which threatens the stability of the organisation.
Page Eight

The extraordinary story of Gloucester housewife Janet Leach who played a key role in the uncovering of the crimes of Fred and Rosemary West.
Appropriate Adult

David Hare concludes his trilogy of films about MI5 renegade Johnny Worricker with another fugue on power, secrets and the British establishment. Johnny Worricker goes on the run with Margot Tyrell across Europe, and with the net closing in, the former MI5 man knows his only chance of resolving his problems is to return home and confront prime minister Alec Beasley.
Salting the Battlefield
An anthology series set in the elite world of London law following two rival firms, Cathcarts and Taylor & Byrne, as they face off in a different headline-making legal battle each season.
WAR

A special ops unit commandeer a commercial research vessel and its submersible to locate a mysterious item at the bottom of the Yellow Sea. When an explosion causes the sub to overturn and take on water, the crew begins to understand that not all of them will escape and a fight for survival ensues.
The Chamber
Based on the Edith Wharton classic of the same name, Undine Spragg, a fiercely ambitious woman from the Midwest, strives for the social heights of turn of the century New York. Armed with beauty, daring/hustle and sheer force of will/unwavering ambition, Undine battles an entrenched elite, fearlessly courting controversy, until love and fortune align.
The Custom of the Country

Set in the fields of Devon and the WW1 battlefields of Flanders, two brothers fall for the same girl while contending with the pressures of their feudal family life, the war, and the price of courage and cowardice.
Private Peaceful

The National Theatre's live theatrical production of Tony Kushner's two-part play 'Angels In America' about New Yorkers grappling with the AIDS crisis during the mid-1980s.
National Theatre Live: Angels In America — Part One: Millennium Approaches

America in the mid-1980s. In the midst of the AIDS crisis and a conservative Reagan administration, New Yorkers grapple with life and death, love and sex, heaven and hell. This new staging of Tony Kushner's multi-award winning two-part play, Angels In America: A Gay Fantasia On National Themes, is directed by Olivier and Tony award winning director Marianne Elliott.
National Theatre Live: Angels In America — Part Two: Perestroika

Edward, a gay novelist saddled with caring for his elderly mother, finally finds himself on the brink of literary success. With pressure to go on a US book tour mounting, the last thing Edward needs is his friends jetting off to Spain for an impromptu Pride holiday, leaving their mothers on his doorstep! Over a chaotic weekend, he has to juggle his burgeoning career with the care of four eccentric, combative, and wildly different ladies.