Paul Anderson
Paul Anderson is an actor, born 1978.
Paul Anderson worked for a decade in British film and television before Peaky Blinders made him internationally recognizable as Arthur Shelby, the eldest brother and the most damaged one. It is the role his career is organized around, and the reason is easy to see: Arthur is a man holding himself together with violence, religion and whatever else is to hand, and Anderson plays the effort rather than the result.
Everything he does well is somewhere in that performance. He is very good at men whose self-control is visibly temporary, and casting directors have used him accordingly. Colonel Sebastian Moran in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a marksman with no visible nerves. His trapper in The Revenant belongs to a company where every conversation is a negotiation about survival. Guy of Gisbourne in the 2018 Robin Hood is the same register with much less to work with.
The pattern of his film career is strong ensembles and secondary roles: In the Heart of the Sea, Legend, Hostiles, Nightmare Alley, '71. He has shared scenes with Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law and Chris Hemsworth without ever being the name above the title. Whether that changes is an open question, and the honest answer is that the material has not yet asked him for anything Arthur did not already prove. What is not in question is that when a period drama needs someone who looks like he could genuinely hurt you, he sits near the top of a very short list.
Movies (17)
- The Revenant (2015)
- Lift (2024)
- Legend (2015)
- Robin Hood (2018)
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
- In the Heart of the Sea (2015)
- Nightmare Alley (2021)
- Hostiles (2017)
- Brimstone (2016)
- 24 Hours to Live (2017)
- '71 (2014)
- A Lonely Place to Die (2011)
- Passion (2013)
- The Sweeney (2012)
- Still Life (2013)
- Feedback (2019)
- The Firm (2009)
TV (3)
Where to start with Paul Anderson
Peaky Blinders is the whole case and there is no sensible alternative. Give it two series before judging him: Arthur begins as the brother who gets things wrong, and the writing gradually turns him into the most difficult and most human character on the show.
For film, The Revenant is the best-made thing he appears in, though the part is small, cold and mostly reactive. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is the most fun, handing him a villain's marksman with genuine menace instead of the usual heavy.
The sleeper is '71, a tight and nasty thriller about a soldier lost in Belfast that does more with its budget than most blockbusters manage. Legend and Hostiles are both worth it for the ensembles, and Brimstone is for anyone who likes their westerns bleak.