Ian Hart

Hart was born Ian Davies in the Knotty Ash district of Liverpool, one of three siblings, and was brought up in a Catholic family.[2] He attended Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School in Liverpool's West Derby suburb and was a member of the city's Everyman Youth Theatre in his teens, before studying drama at the now-defunct Mabel Fletcher College of Music and Drama. From 1988 to 1991, Hart studied video production at South Mersey College (now part of Liverpool Community College).

He was very active in theatre through the 1980s, notable in 'Pinocchio Boys' by Jim Morris; a Paines Plough/ Liverpool Playhouse touring production ('86) and in Willy Russell's Stags and Hens at York Theatre Royal ('85).

Hart portrayed a POUM militia volunteer in Ken Loach's Spanish Civil War film, Land and Freedom (1995) and an unemployed Liverpool shipyard worker in Liam (2000). His best known role, however, is perhaps that of Professor Quirrell in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001). He also provided the voice of the CGI-generated face of Lord Voldemort.

Hart came to attention of the fim world when he played John Lennon in the low-budget independent film The Hours and Times (a two hander featuring Lennon and the Beatles's manager Brian Epstein) [ (1991). He played Lennon twice more: a slightly younger Lennon during The Beatles' 1960-62 Hamburg period in Backbeat (1994), and a 50-year-old Lennon (having avoided his true fate at age 40) in the Playhouse Presents television production Snodgrass (2013).

Hart played Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the film Finding Neverland in 2004, having already played Doyle's creation Dr Watson in a BBC One television film of The Hound of the Baskervilles in 2002, and reprising the role in 2004 in Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, with a different actor playing Sherlock Holmes. He also played schizophrenic paparazzo Don Konkey in the FX series Dirt in 2007 and 2008. In 2009 he played Tom Ripley in BBC Radio Four's adaptations of all five of Patricia Highsmith's "Ripliad" series.

Hart had an interesting audience interaction during the Duke of York's Theatre's 2009 production of Andrew Bovell's play Speaking in Tongues. After the performance on 23 November, Hart went into the audience and remonstrated with a man whom he had earlier told to "shut up" from the stage. He also played Adolf Hitler in the BBC drama The Man Who Crossed Hitler,[3] which aired in August 2011. He is also starring in The Last Kingdom on Netflix as Father Beocca which first aired in October 2015.

• Ian Hart at IMDb