Nathaniel Parker (born 18 May 1962) is a versatile, Olivier Award winning, Tony nominated, English stage and screen actor best known for playing Detective Inspector Thomas "Tommy" Lynley in the BBC crime drama series The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
Parker joined the National Youth Theatre, and after training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986.
Parker portrayed Bassanio in Peter Hall's 1989 production of The Merchant of Venice in both London and on Broadway, co-starring with Dustin Hoffman.
In 2000, he played Bob in Rupert Goold's West End revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow.
Parker returned to the stage in 2013 for the Westend production of The Audience, starring Dame Helen Mirren, written by Peter Morgan (The Queen) and directed by Stephen Daldry. The play ran for four months at the Gielgud Theatre in London. It was also transmitted worldwide via National Theatre Live and was seen by more than 110,000 viewers in the UK and USA alone.