Movies

Tom Burke (born 30 June 1981) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Athos in the 2014–2016 BBC series The Musketeers, Dolokhov in the 2016 BBC literary-adaptation miniseries War & Peace, the eponymous character Cormoran Strike in the 2017–2022 BBC series Strike and Orson Welles in the 2020 film Mank.

Early life
Burke was born in London and grew up in Kent. His parents, David Burke and Anna Calder-Marshall, are also actors, as were his godparents, Alan Rickman and Bridget Turner. His maternal grandparents were writers Arthur Calder-Marshall and Ara Calder-Marshall. Burke was born with a cleft lip and had reconstructive surgery.

Burke always wanted to become an actor. He attended the National Youth Theatre, the Young Arden Theatre in Faversham, and the Box Clever Theatre Company performing at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, and participated in the plays his parents staged in their hometown.

As a child, Burke was diagnosed with dyslexia and struggled academically. He left school before his A-levels because he "couldn't stand the idea of that" and thought he "wouldn't survive it". As soon as he left school at 17, he wrote to an acting agency and got the first role he auditioned for. He attended dance school before being accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London when he was 18.