Profile Text
Tom Cullen – 55th Annual Times BFI London Film Festival, 2011 – Photo Credit: Landmark / PR Photos
Birth Name: Thomas Osborn Cullen
Place of Birth: Cardigan North, Cardiganshire, Wales
Date of Birth: 17 July, 1985
Ethnicity: Irish, English
Tom Cullen is a Welsh actor, writer, and director. He is known for his roles on television’s Downton Abbey , Knightfall , Gunpowder , Genius : Picasso , and Becoming Elizabeth , and in the films Weekend (2011), The Last Days on Mars , Desert Dancer , Black Mountain Poets , The Other Half , 100 Streets , Mine (2016), Castle in the Ground , My Son , and Barbarians (2021). He directed and wrote the film Pink Wall .
He was raised in Llandrindod Wells and Cardiff. His parents are writers.
He has said :
When people ask me where I’m from and I say Wales, nobody knows where it is. It really makes my blood boil!… I do feel very Welsh. My parents aren’t actually Welsh – my Dad’s Irish and my Mum’s English – but growing up in Wales and growing up in that culture, it’s so rich, that it just penetrates every single fibre of you… There’s a certain outlook in Wales, it’s got like a steely humility which I’m very proud of. I think the Welsh can be passionate and humble at the same time, and very generous.
When people ask me where I’m from and I say Wales, nobody knows where it is. It really makes my blood boil!… I do feel very Welsh. My parents aren’t actually Welsh – my Dad’s Irish and my Mum’s English – but growing up in Wales and growing up in that culture, it’s so rich, that it just penetrates every single fibre of you… There’s a certain outlook in Wales, it’s got like a steely humility which I’m very proud of. I think the Welsh can be passionate and humble at the same time, and very generous.
Tom’s maternal grandfather’s surname is White.