Samuel Anderson
Samuel Anderson is an actor, born 1982.
Samuel Anderson, from Handsworth in Birmingham, got the kind of start most actors never see. He originated Crowther in Alan Bennett's The History Boys on stage and carried the role through to the 2006 film. British television then did what it does with a reliable young actor, and he spent years as a recognisable supporting face: Ross Kirk in Emmerdale between 2007 and 2009, Fingers in Gavin & Stacey, Julius in Hex, Vince Grady in DCI Banks.
Doctor Who made him a name in 2014. Danny Pink is a maths teacher and a former soldier, and the part is genuinely difficult, because he exists to be sceptical about the Doctor at exactly the point where the show was daring its audience to agree with him. Anderson played him tired, patient and unimpressed, which is a hard note to hold opposite that much whimsy.
The work since has been steady and unshowy, which in British television is a compliment rather than a hedge. He spent several years as Daniel in the supermarket sitcom Trollied, then DC Paul Wilkie in Landscapers, William in Another Life, Vinny Mason in the horror series Red Rose, George Horner in Renegade Nell, Mal in Amandaland. The film appearances are small by design: a Jehovah's Witness in The Lady in the Van, an A&R man in Back to Black, David in Gunpowder Milkshake.
Movies (5)
TV (12)
Where to start with Samuel Anderson
Most people arrive here for Doctor Who, and it holds up. Danny Pink is one of very few characters the modern series allowed to be openly unconvinced by the Doctor, and the two-part finale collected as Doctor Who: Dark Water / Death in Heaven hands Anderson the heaviest material he ever had on the show.
Before that, The History Boys is the one to see for the stage-trained version of him, in an ensemble where nobody gets much room and he registers anyway.
For range, try Landscapers, a formally playful true-crime drama in which he is the detective constable trying to keep a very strange case ordinary, and Red Rose, a considerably nastier piece of teen horror. Gavin & Stacey is the comedy proof, Gunpowder Milkshake is the one where he gets to be in an action film, and Amandaland is the most recent thing on the list.