It’s a measure of a great actor that the characters they play are so convincing, it’s easy to think that’s what they’re like in real life. Timothy Spall found fame as dim builder Barry in 80s comedy drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. But before that, he’d been in the National Youth Theatre, trained at Rada, worked for the RSC and starred in his first Mike Leigh film, Home Sweet Home.
Obviously he can’t turn into a rat like he can in Harry Potter, but neither is he from from Birmingham, which will confuse fans of Red Dwarf (where he infamously invents the word “twonk”).
