Mackenzie Crook

Mackenzie Crook (born Paul James Crook, 29 September 1971) is an English actor, director and writer.

He played Gareth Keenan in The Office, Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Orell in the HBO series Game of Thrones, and the title role of Worzel Gummidge.

Crook was born on 29 September 1971 in Maidstone, Kent, and grew up in Dartford, Kent.

He is the son of Michael Crook, a British Airways employee, and Sheila Crook, a hospital manager.

As a child he received a course of hormone therapy for three years to treat a growth hormone deficiency.

He attended Sutton-at-Hone Primary School and then Wilmington Grammar School for Boys.

As there was no drama department at his grammar school, he joined a local youth theatre.

He has said that he failed his A-levels because he "completely lost interest" after his GCSEs.

In the summers, he spent time at his uncle's tobacco farm in northern Zimbabwe, where he developed his love for smoking.

Crook's first jobs included working at a Pizza Hut restaurant and also at Halfords where he felt he was "waiting for real life to start".

After moving to London when he was in his early twenties, he worked on the comedy circuit, appearing as two characters he created, Mr Bagshawe and Charlie Cheese.

He went on to appear in shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he was spotted by Bob Mortimer.

One of Crook's earliest television appearances was in the 1998 Channel 4 sketch show Barking as grotesque schoolteacher Mr. Bagshaw, said to be based on a variety of obnoxious, overbearing science teachers Crook had in school.

He was offered his first major television role as a comedy sketch contributor on Channel 4's The Eleven O'Clock Show in 1998, from which he was later dropped.

In late 1999, he hosted the short-lived ITV1 show Comedy Café as his Charlie Cheese character.

The show, made by Channel X for ITV1, had Cheese interviewing celebrities about their latest live tour, book, album or film release.

He was later a member of the main cast of the BBC sketch show TV to Go in 2001.

In 2001, Crook auditioned for the role of Gareth Keenan in Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant popular mockumentary The Office. Though it was originally written for a larger, thuggish actor, Crook won the role, and by the end of the series in 2003 had earned two BAFTA nominations.

He has starred in three of Tim Plester and Ben Gregor's short films: as Gary Tibbs in Ant Muzak (2002), as Servalan in Blake's Junction 7 (2004), and as Glorious George in World of Wrestling (2006), all released on DVD.

He has done voice-over in the TV series Modern Toss, was featured in I Want Candy as Mr Dulberg, a quirky university professor; and voiced Rolli Bobbler in the English version of an animated film from Finland called Quest for a Heart (original Finnish name Röllin Sydän).

Crook was featured in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007); as Ragetti, a pirate with a comically ill-fitting wooden false eye, who is teamed with Pintel (Lee Arenberg).

He has appeared in adverts as the character for Visa and M&Ms.

His other film appearances include The Gathering (2003) and The Brothers Grimm (2005).

Crook appeared as Launcelot Gobbo in Michael Radford's 2004 film adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and had a minor role in the 2004 film Finding Neverland as a theatre usher.

He has also been heard as himself in adverts for MTV and Film4, and as a voiceover artiste for motor insurance company Green Flag in 2007.

He also performed a duet with Ricky Gervais in the 2007 Concert for Diana.

Crook played the leading role of Paul Callow in the comedy film Three and Out, released on 25 April 2008.

On 10 May 2008 he appeared in an episode of the BBC1 comedy/drama Love Soup playing the character Marty Cady and appeared in an episode of Andrew Davies' 2008 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit.

He also provided his voice and movements to a character in Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, which began filming in January 2009 and was released in 2011.

Crook starred in Wyndham Price's drama Abraham's Point as Comet Snape and appeared in City of Ember as Looper, and on TV was featured in the documentary Tattoos: A Scarred History (2009).

He also appeared in Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack and the ITV drama Demons (originally titled The Last Van Helsing) as the vampire Gladiolus Hadilus Tradius Thrip.

In January 2009, Crook assisted in the second and third episodes of the third series of the E4 teen drama Skins, where he played psychotic Bristol gangster Johnny White.

In September 2009, he appeared in Merlin, for the first episode of the second season, as Cedric.

In 2010 he narrated an advertisement for electrical retailer Currys.

In November 2010, Crook starred in A Reluctant Tragic Hero, a comic play by Anton Chekhov, on the Sky Arts channel, which also starred Johnny Vegas, with whom he also starred in 2004's Sex Lives of the Potato Men, a film about the sexual antics of a group of potato delivery men in Birmingham.

Crook played Corporal Buckley, a brutal career soldier, in Jimmy McGovern's Accused, broadcast on BBC1 in November 2010.

During the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con it was announced that Crook would play the role of Orell in the third season of Game of Thrones.

He is also the creator and star of BBC Four's Detectorists (2014–2022), for which he won two BAFTA awards.

He also plays major roles in TV series Britannia, as the opposite leading druids Veran and Harka.

Crook also wrote, directed and starred in the television comedy series Detectorists, which was first broadcast on BBC Four on 2 October 2014.