Jason Flemyng

Jason Flemyng (born 25 September 1966) is an English actor.

Flemyng was born in Putney, London, the son of Scottish film director Gordon Flemyng.

He decided he wanted to become an actor after appearing in theatrical productions at his school. "I always wanted to be an actor," he later told the BBC. "From the time I fancied a girl who played Dorothy in the school production of The Wizard of Oz. I auditioned for the role of the scarecrow so that I could have the most stage time with her, but she ended up running off with the tin man!"

In the 1980s he was involved with the National Youth Theatre and the political organisation the Young Socialists. He also became involved with the Labour Party's Militant tendency, and was expelled from Labour in 1987 for selling the Militant newspaper. Flemyng has subsequently claimed that both his theatrical and political activities at this time were simply a way of meeting girls. In 1990 he was admitted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where he was a classmate of Hermione Norris. Following his graduation from LAMDA in the early 1990s he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company.

One of his first prominent roles on screen was a guest appearance in the American television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles in 1992. He was then a regular in the ITV drama series Doctor Finlay from 1993 to 1996.

His first film appearance was in the 1994 version of The Jungle Book. His first major cinema role was in Guy Ritchie's 1998 London gangster film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Flemyng later claimed to have lost so much money while playing poker with the film's backers in between takes on set that he had to work on the four days of re-shoots the film required for no fee. In parallel with his film career, Flemyng has continued to take various television roles. He told BBC News Online in 2004 that: "Of the 40 feature films I've made, 15 of them failed to make it onto the screen and have only ever been seen by cast and crew. It is very frustrating when a film you really believe in remains unseen. That's not a problem with television. If you're a painter you don't paint a picture and then stick it under the bed - you want people to see it."

Flemyng has married Elly Fairman in the summer of 2008, in Tuscany.

He previously dated actress Lena Headey for nine years.

Flemyng enjoys long-distance running and has already completed several marathons.