Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry is an actor, born 1957.
Stephen Fry came out of the Cambridge Footlights in 1981, in a revue that also contained Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery, which is an absurd amount of talent for one student show. The partnership with Laurie produced A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster, where Fry played the valet as a man of infinite tact and Laurie played the idiot he tactfully manages.
Blackadder gave him Melchett, all volume and no sense, and it remains the funniest use anyone has made of his voice. That voice, plummy and exact, is the instrument: he can deliver a subordinate clause like a punchline, and an entire television format was built on the fact. QI ran with him as host from 2003 to 2016 and earned him six BAFTA nominations for what is, technically, reading out facts.
The dramatic work has been selective rather than prolific. Wilde in 1997 was obvious casting and he did not waste it. Since then he has mostly lent gravity or mischief to other people's films: Mycroft in a Sherlock Holmes sequel, the Master of Laketown in the Hobbit films, the Cheshire Cat, the narrator of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which may be the most Fry-shaped job ever offered to anyone. It's a Sin found a use for the warmth in a much colder story. He was knighted, and he writes at least as much as he acts.
Movies (50)
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
- Alice in Wonderland (2010)
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
- Red, White & Royal Blue (2023)
- V for Vendetta (2006)
- Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)
- Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts (2022)
- Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
- I.Q. (1994)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
- A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
- Spice World (1997)
- MirrorMask (2005)
- The Man Who Knew Infinity (2016)
- Gosford Park (2001)
- Missing Link (2019)
- The Con Is On (2018)
- Duck Duck Goose (2018)
- Wilde (1997)
- St Trinian's (2007)
- A Civil Action (1998)
- Stormbreaker (2006)
- Greed (2019)
- Le Divorce (2003)
- The Canterville Ghost (2023)
- Thunderpants (2002)
- The Inventor (2023)
- Love & Friendship (2016)
- The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
- Red, White & Royal Wedding
TV (46)
- Bones (2005)
- The Graham Norton Show (2007)
- Top Gear (2002)
- The Sandman (2022)
- QI (2003)
- Harley Quinn (2019)
- Natural World (1983)
- Blackadder (1983)
- Wogan (1982)
- Pocoyo (2005)
- The Jonathan Ross Show (2011)
- Jeeves and Wooster (1990)
- Heartstopper (2022)
- Click (2000)
- Who Do You Think You Are? (2004)
- Parkinson (1998)
- Apple & Onion (2018)
- Extras (2005)
- Shooting Stars (1993)
- Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (2024)
- The Dropout (2022)
- Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1988)
- Danger Mouse (2015)
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (1998)
- Kingdom (2007)
- The BAFTA Awards (1949)
- The New Statesman (1987)
- The Thin Blue Line (1995)
- Too Much (2025)
- So Graham Norton (1998)
Books (2)
Where to start with Stephen Fry
Go to Blackadder first, specifically the later series, where Melchett is at full bellow. It is the cheapest possible way to understand what Fry does with pomposity, and it is still the funniest thing on his CV.
A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster are the double act at its best, the second a genuinely faithful Wodehouse adaptation that most people underrate. QI is the long-form version of his charm and works in any order at all. For the serious register, Wilde is the performance he was born to give, and It's a Sin puts that warmth somewhere much harder. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a mediocre film with perfect narration.
The comedy career
Blackadder, the sketch show with Hugh Laurie, and then thirteen years of QI. Jeeves and Wooster is the best of it: a valet played with total stillness opposite Laurie doing the opposite.
The film credits
Wilde is the one that matters, playing Oscar Wilde with an obvious personal stake in getting it right. A Fish Called Wanda and Gosford Park are the two where he does a great deal with very little.
The voice work
The voice is the asset and the Hitchhiker's Guide narration is the perfect use of it, since Douglas Adams reportedly wanted him for it. The Cheshire Cat and Missing Link are the animation credits.
The dramatic television
It's a Sin gives him a Conservative MP in the middle of the AIDS crisis, and The Dropout casts him as the scientist nobody at Theranos would listen to. Both are recent and both are better than expected.