- published: 14 Jan 2016
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Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams, known professionally as Hugh Bonneville (born 10 November 1963), is an English stage, film, television and radio actor. He is best known for portraying the roles of Robert, Earl of Grantham in the ITV hit television series Downton Abbey and Ian Fletcher, Head of Deliverance of the Olympic Deliverance Commission, in BBC comedy series Twenty Twelve.
Bonneville was born in London, and educated at Sherborne School, an independent school in the market town of Sherborne, Dorset, followed by Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge, where he read Theology, and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Bonneville is also an alumnus of the National Youth Theatre.
Bonneville's first professional stage appearance was at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park. In 1987 he joined the National Theatre where he appeared in several plays, then the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1991, where he played Laertes to Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1992–1993). He was also Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Bergetto in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Kastril and later Surly in The Alchemist.