Isaac Hempstead Wright is a British actor. He is best known for his role as
Bran Stark
Brandon Stark, known as Bran, is a fictional character in the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, and its television adaptation '' Game of Thrones'', where he is portrayed by English ...
in the
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...
television series ''
Game of Thrones
''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...
'' (2011–2019), which earned him a
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award (originally known as the Youth in Film Award) is an accolade presented by the Young Artist Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1978 to honor excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young ...
nomination as
Best Young Supporting Actor in a TV Series. He also voiced Eggs in the 2014 animated film ''
The Boxtrolls
''The Boxtrolls'' is a 2014 American stop-motion animated fantasy comedy film directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi (in their feature directorial debuts) loosely based on the 2005 novel ''Here Be Monsters!'' by Alan Snow. It is produc ...
''.
Early life
Isaac Hempstead Wright was born in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
, England. His mother and father are both teachers, and his step-father runs a printing company.
He studied at
Queen Elizabeth Grammar School,
Faversham
Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient British t ...
,
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
.
He had no interest in acting until he joined a drama club to avoid playing
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
on Saturday mornings during the cold months of the year; he later studied acting at the Kent Youth Theatre in
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour.
...
.
["Isaac Hempstead-Wright: Biography"](_blank)
''TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
''. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
Career
Hempstead Wright began his acting career by auditioning and acting in commercials.
Hempstead Wright's big break was as
Bran Stark
Brandon Stark, known as Bran, is a fictional character in the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R. R. Martin, and its television adaptation '' Game of Thrones'', where he is portrayed by English ...
in the hit television series ''
Game of Thrones
''Game of Thrones'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, the first ...
,'' which premiered in April 2011. He was part of the initial starring cast and remained a member of the starring cast for the second, third, and fourth seasons, which earned him two
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Screen Actors Guild Awards (also known as SAG Awards) are accolades given by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). The award was founded in 1952 to recognize outstanding performances in movie an ...
nominations as
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in Drama Series at the 18th and 20th Screen Actors Guild Awards.
He did not appear in
Season 5
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...
, but returned as part of the main cast in
season 6
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...
. The eighth and final season of the show premiered in April 2019, with Hempstead Wright in a starring role, making him one of a handful of ''Game of Thrones'' actors who have remained on the show over its nine years of production.
Hempstead Wright's film debut was as Tom Hill in the horror film ''
The Awakening'', which premiered in September 2011. Hempstead Wright also had a supporting role in the 2013
crime thriller ''Closed Circuit''.
Hempstead Wright also voice acted in the 2014
animated fantasy-comedy film, ''The Boxtrolls'', a 2014 episode of the American show ''
Family Guy
''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...
'', and Part 2 of the 2016 TV special ''
Revolting Rhymes
''Revolting Rhymes'' is a 1982 collection of Roald Dahl poems first published in 1982 originally under the title ''Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes''. A parody of traditional folk tales in verse, Dahl gives a re-interpretation of six well-known fa ...
''.
Hempstead Wright appears in the
Foals song "
Exits" music video. Directed by Albert Moya, it also features French actress
Christa Théret
Christa Théret (born 25 June 1991) is a French actress, best known for her role of Andrée Heuschling in ''Renoir''.
Early life
As a child, Théret aspired to be a teacher and then to become an actress.
Career
Théret's acting career began a ...
as students at a clandestine
fencing
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...
academy in a random series of interconnected vignettes of a
surrealist
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
nature. The video was filmed in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
.
In 2018, Hempstead Wright was cast in the feature film ''The Blue Mauritius.'' The heist movie was expected to begin filming in
Cape Town, South Africa
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislature, legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the sec ...
in mid-2018 but has remained in pre-production. As of 2021, he is still attached to the project.
In April 2019, it was announced that Hempstead Wright was attached to the upcoming
sci-fi film
Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar ...
''
Voyagers'' as part of an ensemble cast which includes
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell (; born 31 May 1976) is an Irish actor. A leading man in projects across various genres in both blockbuster and independent films since the 2000s, he has received numerous accolades including a Golden Globe Award. ''The I ...
and
Tye Sheridan
Tye Kayle Sheridan (born November 11, 1996) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for playing the young Scott Summers / Cyclops in the reboot ''X-Men'' film series (2016–2019), as well as Wade Watts in ''Ready Player One'' (2 ...
. The film was produced in 2019 and was released in April 2021.
Personal life
Beginning in 2017, Hempstead Wright was a student at the
University of Birmingham
, mottoeng = Through efforts to heights
, established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...
until dropping out early in order to focus on his acting career. In 2019 he returned to university to study
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...
in London, saying that he intended to continue to act while doing so.
In December 2019, Hempstead Wright, a
secular humanist
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality an ...
, became a patron of the humanist charity
Humanists UK
Humanists UK, known from 1967 until May 2017 as the British Humanist Association (BHA), is a charitable organisation which promotes secular humanism and aims to represent "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious be ...
.
Filmography
Film
Television
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hempstead Wright, Isaac
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
21st-century English male actors
English male child actors
English male film actors
English male television actors
English male voice actors
English humanists
Male actors from Surrey
People from Faversham