- published: 27 Apr 2015
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Paul James "Mackenzie" Crook (born 29 September 1971) is an English actor, writer, director, and stand-up comedian. He is best known for playing Gareth Keenan in The Office, Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Orell in the HBO series Game of Thrones, and the creator and star of BBC Four's Detectorists.
Crook was born in Maidstone, Kent. He grew up in Dartford, Kent. His father, Michael Crook, worked for British Airways, and his mother, Sheila, was a hospital manager. He has two sisters. As a child, he was put on a course of hormone therapy for three years due to a growth hormone deficiency. In the summers, he spent time at his uncle's tobacco farm in northern Zimbabwe, where he developed his love for painting. He was educated at the Wilmington Grammar School for Boys, Dartford, where he was the illustrator and cartoonist for the school magazine. He joined the Orchard Youth Theatre in Dartford when he was about 15 years old.
Wanting to be a graphic artist, aged 18 he applied and was turned down three times for courses at the Kent Institute of Art & Design. He spent a while doing part-time jobs in a publisher's, a hospital, Halford's and Pizza Hut.