Ian Kelly is a renowned writer and actor with a diverse career spanning film, theatre, and television. Born in Philadelphia to British parents, he was raised in the West Country and North West of England. Kelly graduated from Cambridge University and UCLA's film school on scholarships before embarking on a dual career in acting and writing.
Kelly's film work includes notable roles in the Harry Potter franchise, The King's Man, Creation, The Children Act, In Love and War, Howards End, and Russian films Admiral Kolchak and Voina. He was nominated for Best Actor at the Montreal Film Festival for his role in Voina.
In television, Kelly has appeared in popular shows such as Downton Abbey, Sensitive Skin, The Moth, Silent Witness, Hetty Wainthropp, Just William, Beau Brummell, Underworld, Time Trumpet, and Drop the Dead Donkey.
On stage, Kelly has performed in numerous productions, including Broadway, West End, and National Theatre shows. Some of his notable theatre credits include The Pitmen Painters, Mr Foote's Other Leg, A Busy Day, Cooking for Kings, Beau Brummell, Arcadia, Relative Values, Pygmalion, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Arsenic and Old Lace, Single Spies, Macbeth, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, and The Changeling.
As a writer, Kelly has penned biographies on Beau Brummell, Casanova, Antonin Carême, Samuel Foote, and Vivienne Westwood. His plays include Mr Foote's Other Leg, Cooking for Kings, and Playing for Stalin, which was commissioned for the Salzburg Festival. Kelly has also co-written a play with Kit de Waal on Frank Barber, Britain's first Black schoolteacher, and is currently developing several screen projects in France, the UK, and the USA.
