Like a number of British actors of the same generation (John Hurt and Alan Rickman, to name two), Roger Rees was originally trained for the visual arts. He acted in church and Boy Scout stage productions while growing up in London, but studied painting and lithography at the Slade School of Art, and his first paying jobs in show business were as a scenery painter.

He turned to acting on a full-time basis in the mid-1960's. After his fourth audition, the Royal Shakespeare Company finally hired him as a bit player in 1968. He then worked his way up through the R.S.C.'s ranks, finally achieving stardom in the early 1980's in its production of 'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby', for which he won both an Olivier award and a Tony award. He was also nominated for an Emmy award for the television version of the play. By this time he had several TV movies to his name, but he did not make his large-screen debut until Star 80. More recently he has acted in several British and American TV series and in a number of independent films.

Roger Rees remains primarily a man of the theatre, however, with secondary careers as a playwright and stage director. He has lived in the United States since 1989.


Won Broadway's 1982 Tony Award as Best Actor for playing the title role in "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby," a role he recreated in the television version with the same title, "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" (1982). He was also nominated for a Tony Award in the same category in 1995 for "Indiscretions." In November 2004 was named artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts, only the fourth person to hold the post in its half century. He left the position October 2007. Started his career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and attended the Slade School of Fine Arts.