Timothy Leonard Spall OBE (born 27 February 1957) is an English BAFTA award-nominated actor.
Spall, third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London; his father, Joe, was a postal worker, and his mother, Sylvia, a hairdresser. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and RADA, where he was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal as the most promising actor in his year. His brother, Matthew, is studio director of the computer games company Morpheme.
Initially notable in the UK for playing the gormless Barry Taylor in all four series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, he has since starred in films such as Crusoe, Secrets & Lies, Shooting the Past, Rock Star, The Last Samurai, and Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. He gained international recognition as Peter Pettigrew in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Spall played the starring role of Albert Pierrepoint in the 2005 film Pierrepoint, which was released as The Last Hangman in the United States. In the 2006 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Spall voiced Phil Collins' manager, Barry Mickelthwaite. In 2007, he starred as Nathaniel in Disney's Enchanted and Beadle Bamford in Tim Burton's production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. On 31 December 1999, he was named an Officer of the British Empire.
Spall is married and has three children: Mercedes, (born 1985), Pascale (born 1976) and Rafe (born 1983), who is also an actor. He lives in a large house in Forest Hill a suburb of south-east London.
In 1996, Spall was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, but has since been in remission. He has said of his illness:
"I didn't know what made me ill but stress had something to do with it and the point is now to head off stress at the pass. It made me aware of things and become more selective. I am less worried about employment. I really do my homework so I am not getting stressed on the set because I don't know what I'm doing."