Peter Serafinowicz

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz (born 10 July 1972) is an British actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter.

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz was born into a Catholic family in Liverpool's Gateacre suburb on 10 July 1972, the son of post office worker Catherine (née Geary) and scaffolder Szymon Serafinowicz Jr. His father was born and raised in Surrey to a Polish mother and Belarusian father, and later moved to Liverpool as an adult.

Serafinowicz's Belarusian paternal grandfather was accused of being a Nazi collaborator.

Serafinowicz made his broadcasting debut in 1993 on Radio 1 show The Knowledge, a spoof documentary about the music industry.

From there he went on to perform in Radio 4 shows Week Ending, Harry Hill's Fruit Corner, Grievous Bodily Radio, The Two Dannys, and A Whole New Ball Game.

On 1 May 1997, he appeared in The Election Night Armistice as Moz Bingham, the fictional press secretary to the then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who verbally abuses the BBC's Nick Robinson in a spoof phone call over the politician's news coverage.

In 1998 he appeared on TV in Comedy Nation and You Are Here.

He also had a role in the sitcom How Do You Want Me? penned by Simon Nye.

Serafinowicz's film roles include the voice of Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Pete in Shaun of the Dead (2004), Garthan Saal in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the voice of Big Daddy in Sing (2016) and Sing 2 (2021), and The Sommelier in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017).

In 1999, he had a few guest appearances in the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, playing protagonist Tim Bisley's (Simon Pegg) nemesis, Duane Benzie.

Serafinowicz made guest appearances on television, including the comedy shows Smack the Pony and Hippies (both 1999), Black Books (2000), I'm Alan Partridge (2002) and Little Britain (2003), comedy-drama Murder Most Horrid (1999), ITV drama series Agatha Christie's Marple (2006) and Parks and Recreation (2013).

He made a number of guest appearances on both television and radio panel shows.

He made another cameo appearance in the series when it returned in 2001.

In 2001, he took the lead in BBC Two sitcom World of Pub, playing the same character as he had done in the show's run on Radio 4.

He appeared in The Junkies, an Internet sitcom.

On television, Serafinowicz created and starred in the comedy shows Look Around You (2002–2005) and The Peter Serafinowicz Show (2007–2008).

In 2002, the critically acclaimed Look Around You, a series of 10-minute 1970s school science video spoofs in which he played a scientist, were shown on BBC 2.

He co-wrote the show with Robert Popper, whom he met on the set of Spaced.

In 2003, he appeared in another sitcom written by Nye, Hardware, in which he played the affable Kenny.

He has a brother named James, who became a film producer, and a sister named Helen, who became a writer; Helen married Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan in 2004 after Serafinowicz introduced them, and divorced him in 2020 after he became an anti-transgender activist.

At the age of three, Serafinowicz moved with his family to the Belle Vale district of Liverpool, where he attended Our Lady of the Assumption Primary School.

The family moved back to Gateacre when he was 14, and he attended St Francis Xavier's College in the neighbouring Woolton suburb.

He later said, "I had a very happy childhood, but Belle Vale was very rough. I was only about three when we moved there, but I can still remember it looking very shiny, and it was all landscaped. But it was a very poor area, and it became Scruffy quite quickly. [...] Gateacre is traditionally seen as one of the posh areas of Liverpool [but] it wasn't really that much posher!"

He reprised this role in the second series in 2004.

Also in 2004 he appeared in British romantic zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead, playing Pete, the uptight flatmate of principal characters Shaun and Ed.

He appeared in boxing film The Calcium Kid.

The show returned in 2005 as a spoof of the 1980s show Tomorrow's World, with Serafinowicz playing Peter Packard, one of the presenters.

He regularly appeared on The 99p Challenge and appeared on Have I Got News for You in 2005, 2006 and 2008, 8 Out of 10 Cats in 2005, and QI in 2003.

He also voiced characters and worked as a creative consultant on South Park (2006–2015), portrayed Edgar Covington in Parks and Recreation (2013–2015), voiced the Fisher King in Doctor Who (2015), and starred as the title character in the live-action adaptation series The Tick (2016).

His other television work includes voicing characters in animated series such as Archer, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, and American Dad!

In Sixty Six, the 2006 British film about a Jewish boy whose bar mitzvah is scheduled for the same day as the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, Serafinowicz plays Uncle Jimmy.

In the week before the 2006 Academy Awards a video circulated on the Internet of a fake news item (called "O! News", a parody of E! News) about a new Oscar statue, in which Serafinowicz imitated Alan Alda, Paul McCartney and Al Pacino.

A second "O! News" video later appeared, parodying the 2006 Apple Corps v Apple Computer lawsuit.

This attracted the interest of the BBC, and a pilot was commissioned for The Peter Serafinowicz Show.

A full series was broadcast on BBC Two in 2007 (with a Christmas special in 2008).

He also appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on 19 October 2007, Would I Lie to You? on 8 August 2008 and 30 July 2010 and Never Mind the Buzzcocks on 15 October 2009.

For his performance, Serafinowicz was presented with the Best Entertainer prize at the 2008 Rose d'Or ceremony.

The series was also nominated for Best Comedy Programme at the 2009 BAFTA Television Awards.

He has directed music videos for acts such as Hot Chip, and received attention online in the late 2010s for political satire videos in which he dubbed over videos of Donald Trump with various comedic voices.

Serafinowicz has voiced characters in video games such as Dark Souls II (2014), LittleBigPlanet 3 (2014), and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016).