Adrian Holmes

Adrian Holmes was born in Wrexham, in north Wales, in 1974, and built his career in Canada, where his credit list reads like an index of everything shot in Vancouver across three decades. He turns up as Johnny on Highlander: The Series in the early nineties, as Basqat on Smallville, as Warren in Continuum, as Frank Pike on Arrow, and in a long tail of genre features where the part is a captain, a lieutenant, or a soldier with two scenes.

That kind of resume usually means a career of standing at the edge of frame, but Holmes has a specific asset: he can deliver procedure and make it sound like a personal grievance. Give him a briefing to read and he finds the sentence in it that the character resents. The role that finally used him properly was Nick Barron on the Montreal police drama 19-2, which won him a Canadian Screen Award for Best Actor in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role.

Since then the work has got larger and more visible. He plays Philip Banks on Bel-Air, the dramatic reimagining of a part written for a sitcom, which asks him to carry the authority without the laugh track holding it up. He is also Admiral Robert April on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a Starfleet role deep in franchise history. The features remain smaller: Manuel in Elysium, Ajani Okeke in Skyscraper, a captain in Red Riding Hood. Television is where he gets to be the lead, and it shows.