Movies

James Brian Mark Purefoy (born 3 June 1964) is an English actor. He played Mark Antony in the HBO series Rome, Nick Jenkins in A Dance to the Music of Time, college professor turned serial killer Joe Carroll in the series The Following, Solomon Kane in the film of the same name, and Hap Collins in the Sundance series Hap and Leonard. In 2018, he starred as Laurens Bancroft in the first season of Altered Carbon, a Netflix original series. Following an uncredited role as V in the 2006 film V for Vendetta (replaced and dubbed over by Hugo Weaving), he was cast as Captain Gulliver "Gully" Troy / Captain Blighty in the 2020–2021 second and 2022 third season of the Gotham and V for Vendetta prequel television series, Pennyworth, in a main role.

He was born in Somerset and attended Sherborne School before training at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Early life
Purefoy was born in Taunton, Somerset, the eldest son of Anthony Chetwynd Purefoy and Shirley, née Taylor. The Purefoy family were landed gentry, of Shalstone, Buckinghamshire; the family name passed in the female line through Anthony Chetwynd Purefoy's mother, Mary Lilias Geraldine, daughter of Admiral Richard Purefoy (who had changed his surname from Fitzgerald as his mother was the heir and niece of the politician George Purefoy-Jervoise, head of the family); she married Rev. Brian Mews, vicar of Tewkesbury, who changed his name to Purefoy.

Purefoy boarded at Sherborne School, which he left with only one O-level. He later went to night school and received 11 more O-levels, before taking his A-levels at Brooklands College in Weybridge. He worked as a porter at Yeovil District Hospital before studying acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.