Paul McGann

Paul John McGann (born 14 November 1959) is an English actor.

Paul John McGann was born in Liverpool on 14 November 1959, into a Roman Catholic family.

His cousin, Ritchie Routledge, was in the 1960s band The Cryin' Shames.

He has an older brother, Joe, and three younger siblings: brothers Mark and Stephen and sister Clare.

The film was based on the 1978 book of the same name, written by William Alison and John Fairley.

The serial garnered controversy from British right-wing media, though McGann's performance garnered acclaim.

In 1980, the Principal of RADA, Hugh Cruttwell, selected a scene from an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, which McGann co-wrote with Bruce Payne, to be performed in front of Queen Elizabeth II in one of her rare visits to the academy.

Kenneth Branagh performed a soliloquy from Hamlet at the same event.

McGann's breakthrough role was in Give Us a Break, devised by Geoff McQueen, McGann played a good snooker player who got into scrapes with Robert Lindsay, who played his wideboy manager.

The series was a comedy drama in the vein of the popular ITV series of the time, Minder.

The series only lasted for one season and it was concluded by a one-off special.

His mother, Clare, was a teacher, and his father Joe, who died in 1984, was a metallurgist.

He came to prominence for portraying Percy Toplis in the television serial The Monocled Mutineer (1986), then starred in the dark comedy Withnail and I (1987), which was a critical success and developed a cult following.

His first major dramatic role was the British World War I deserter and criminal Percy Toplis in the 1986 BBC serial The Monocled Mutineer.

In 1986, he was cast as the anonymous main character (Marwood) in Bruce Robinson's cult film, Withnail and I.

He also starred as Anton Skrebensky in Ken Russell's 1989 adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow.

McGann's other early film appearances include The Monk, Dealers, Tree of Hands and the epic war film Empire of the Sun.

McGann and other young British actors who were becoming established film actors such as Tim Roth, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bruce Payne were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'.

Since 1989, McGann has concentrated primarily on television work, including Nice Town and Nature Boy for the BBC, and The One That Got Away and the second series of Hornblower for ITV.

However, he has had small roles in a number of high-profile American films like The Three Musketeers and Alien 3.

His role in Alien 3 was originally larger, but much of it was edited out of the final print.

The cut footage can be seen in the extended version of the film.

In 1992, he was cast as Richard Sharpe, the lead character in the Sharpe series of made-for-TV films based on Bernard Cornwell's novels; however he injured his knee while playing football just days into filming Sharpe's Rifles in Ukraine.

He was replaced by Sean Bean and the role effectively kick-started Bean's career and is the one that he is most closely identified with.

All three of his brothers are also actors and the four of them played brothers in the 1995 TV serial The Hanging Gale.

That same year, McGann also played Grigori Potemkin in the television film Catherine the Great alongside Mark and Stephen.

McGann attended Cardinal Allen Grammar School in the Liverpool suburb of West Derby.

He was 17 and working in a shoe shop when he acted on the advice of one of his teachers and successfully auditioned for a place on the acting course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

McGann later became more widely known for portraying the eighth incarnation of the Doctor in the 1996 television film Doctor Who.

McGann played the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, in the Doctor Who 1996 television film.

The television film also starred Eric Roberts, Daphne Ashbrook and featured the outgoing Seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.

McGann's brother, Mark McGann, also auditioned for the title role.

The Doctor Who television film was a joint venture between the BBC, Universal Studios and the Fox Broadcasting Network.

McGann had signed a contract to appear as the Eighth Doctor in a new Doctor Who television series, if Fox or Universal exercised their option.

Thus, the television film was supposed to be a "back door pilot" in that, if it obtained respectable ratings, the new series would continue to be produced.

The film was shown on 14 May 1996 in the US and on 27 May 1996 in the UK.

Although it had 9.08 million viewers and was very successful in the UK, ratings were very low in the United States.

As a consequence, Fox did not exercise its option to pick up the series and Universal could not find another network interested in airing a new Doctor Who series.

He is also known for playing Lieutenant William Bush in the TV series Hornblower (1998–2003).

His ancestors immigrated from Ireland in the mid-19th century, having left due to the Great Famine.