Brendan Coyle
Brendan Coyle (born 2 December 1962) is a British-Irish actor. He won the Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for The Weir in 1999. He also played Nicholas Higgins in the miniseries North & South, Robert Timmins in the first three series of Lark Rise to Candleford, and more recently Mr Bates, the valet, in Downton Abbey, which earned him a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Brendan Coyle was born David Coyle in Corby, Northamptonshire, on 2 December 1962, the son of a Patrick B Coyle and Bedelia M B Anderson. He has an older brother named Shaun Due to his British birth and Irish heritage, he holds both British and Irish citizenship. He is the great-nephew of football manager Sir Matt Busby. He studied drama in Dublin in 1981 and received a scholarship to Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 1983. Coyle received a Laurence Olivier Award in 1999 for his performance in Conor McPherson's The Weir and won a New York Critics Theater World Award for Outstanding Broadway Debut for the same play in its New York production. In 2001, Coyle appeared in the film Conspiracy as Gestapo Chief Heinrich Müller. He played Kaz Sweeney in the British drama True Dare Kiss, and Nicholas Higgins in North & South for the BBC. From 2008 he played Robert Timmins in three BBC series based on the Lark Rise to Candleford novels, written by Flora Thompson. In 2010, he began playing John Bates, valet and former British Army batman to the Earl of Grantham in Julian Fellowes's period drama series, Downton Abbey. Fellowes wrote the part for Coyle, and it won him nominations for a BAFTA and IFTA as well as a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Awards as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2012. He also won three Screen Actors Guild Awards 2013–16. Coyle also played the character of Terry Starling in the short-lived Sky comedy series Starlings.
Known For
Credits
- 2025 · Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale as John Bates
- 2025 · Toxic Town as Roy Thomas
- 2024 · Finders Keepers as Denys Elland
- 2022 · Riches as Gideon
- 2022 · Downton Abbey: A New Era as John Bates
- 2019 · Downton Abbey as John Bates
- 2018 · Mary Queen of Scots as Earl of Lennox
- 2018 · Requiem as Stephen Kendrick
- 2016 · Unless as
- 2016 · Saving Lives at Sea as Self - Narrator
- 2016 · Me Before You as Bernard Clark
- 2015 · A Merry Murdoch Christmas as Rankin
- 2015 · Spotless as Nelson Clay
- 2015 · 12 Monkeys as Benjamin Kalman
- 2014 · Noble as Gerry Shaw
- 2012 · Starlings as
- 2012 · The Raven as Reagan
- 2010 · Downton Abbey as John Bates
- 2009 · Perrier's Bounty as Jerome
- 2008 · Lark Rise to Candleford as Robert Timmins
- 2007 · The Mark of Cain as Davey Gulliver
- 2007 · True Dare Kiss as Kaz Sweeney
- 2007 · Damage as Aidan Cahill
- 2007 · Wedding Belles as Father Henry
- 2006 · Perfect Parents as Ed
- 2006 · Offside as Duncan Miller
- 2006 · Soundproof as DI Dave Cox
- 2005 · The Ghost Squad as
- 2005 · Jericho as Christie
- 2005 · Omagh as Detective Sergeant John White
- 2005 · The Jacket as Damon
- 2004 · North & South as Nicholas Higgins
- 2003 · Blue Murder as Derek Jowell
- 2003 · The Commander as
- 2002 · Rockface as
- 2001 · Mapmaker as Robert Bates
- 2001 · Waking the Dead as Martin Corgan
- 2001 · Conspiracy as Heinrich Müller
- 2001 · The Bombmaker as George McEvoy
- 2001 · Rebel Heart as Michael Collins
- 2000 · Paths to Freedom as
- 2000 · McCready and Daughter as
- 1999 · I Could Read the Sky as Francie
- 1998 · Soft Sand, Blue Sea as Gerry
- 1998 · The General as UVF Leader
- 1997 · Tomorrow Never Dies as Leading Seaman - HMS Bedford
- 1997 · The Last Bus Home as Steve Burkett
- 1996 · Silent Witness as
- 1996 · Silent Witness as Liam Slattery
- 1995 · Dangerfield as
- 1995 · The Glass Virgin as Manuel Mendoza
- 1992 · Fool's Gold: The Story Of The Brink's Mat Robbery as Det. Sgt. Benwell
- 1991 · Prime Suspect as DCS Mitchell
- 1984 · The Bill as
- Future · Butterfly in the Typewriter as Milton Rickels
- Future · The Rising: 1916 as Augustine Birrell