Timothy Simon Roth (born 14 May 1961 in Dulwich, London) is an English film actor and director best known for his roles in the American films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Planet of the Apes (2001), The Incredible Hulk, and Rob Roy, the latter of which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Roth's debut role was in the 1982 TV movie Made in Britain, in which he played a violent skinhead. Interestingly enough, he originally entered the theatre where they were holding the auditions to ask if he could borrow a bike pump for his bicycle. Since then, he has been typecast as thugs, convicts and/or murderers, which makes his casting as Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead interesting.
He impressed director Quentin Tarantino and was cast as Mr. Orange in Tarantino's 1992 ensemble piece Reservoir Dogs. This film paved the way for more work in Hollywood. In 1994, Tarantino cast him again as the robber Pumpkin in the acclaimed Pulp Fiction. They worked again in the 1995 movie Four Rooms, where Roth played the extremely physically animated role of "Ted the Bellhop". Roth was very successful playing viciously evil English nobleman Archibald Cunningham in Rob Roy opposite Liam Neeson. For that role he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, a Golden Globe nomination, and won a British Academy Award. He also played Marlow opposite John Malkovich as Kurtz in a TV Movie adaptation of Heart of Darkness. He also played the role of a genius piano player in The Legend of 1900, and starred in the TV series Lie to Me as Cal Lightman.
Roth is part of the "Brit Pack", a group coined by the media for young British actors who achieved success in Hollywood in the late 1980s. Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Daniel Day-Lewis are among the actors in the group.
Has a very special friendship
with Gary Oldman.
Notable works:
Films
- Made in Britain (1982) as Trevor, a violent and terrifying skinhead. His first on-screen role.
- Meantime (1983) as Colin.
- The Hit (1984) as Myron.
- The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989) as Mitchel.
- Vincent & Theo (1990) as Vincent van Gogh.
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) as Guildenstern.
- Reservoir Dogs (1992) as Mr. Orange.
- Heart of Darkness (1993) as Marlow.
- Little Odessa (1994) as Joshua Shapira.
- Pulp Fiction (1994) as the robber Pumpkin.
- Rob Roy (1995) as hammy nobleman Archibald Cunningham.
- Four Rooms (1995) as Ted the Bellhop.
- Everyone Says I Love You (1996) as Charles Ferry.
- Hoodlum (1997) as Dutch Schultz.
- The Legend of 1900 (1998) as Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon Nineteen Hundred '1900'.
- The War Zone (1999). His directorial debut.
- Planet of the Apes (2001) as General Thade.
- Invincible (2001) as Erik Jan Hanussen.
- The Musketeer (2001) as Febre.
- Virgin Territory (2007) as Gerbino.
- Funny Games (2007) as George Farber.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe as Emil Blonsky / Abomination.
- The Incredible Hulk (2008)
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)
- Arbitrage (2012) as Detective Michael Bryer.
- Broken (2012) as Archie.
- Selma (2014) as Governor George Wallace.
- United Passions (2014) as Sepp Blatter, albeit for all the wrong reasons. He has since admitted he did the movie solely for financial reasons and regretted it while he was making it.
- The Hateful Eight (2015) as Oswaldo Mobray.
- Hardcore Henry (2015) as Henry's father.
- Mr. Right (2015) as Hopper.
- The Con is On (2018) as Peter Fox.
- Resurrection (2022) as David.
TV Series
- Lie to Me (2009–11) as Cal Lightman.
- Robot Chicken (2014) as Doctor Who, Gandalf, and Curious George Narrator.
- Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) as Gary 'Hutch' Hutchens.
- Tin Star (2017-2020) as Chief Jim Worth
Video Games
- The Incredible Hulk (2008) as Emil Blonsky.
