About Charlie

• Started acting at the age of 16.
• Met ex-wife Katharine Towne at an audition for “Dawson’s Creek” (1998).
• Favorite actors are Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn
• Is very good friends with Jamie Bell, Anne Hathaway and Romola Garai. All formed a strong bond while filming Nicholas Nickleby (2002).
• He was the “Face” of the 2005 ad campaign for Emporio Armani.
• He likes to paint, make music, and does some photography in his spare time.
• Charlie enjoys listening to hip-hop. The RZA from Wu-Tang Clan is his favorite artist. He is also a fan of Van Morrison and Tom Waits.
• Was #9 in Elle Girl’s ’50 Sexiest Guys’ list, in the June/July 2005 issue.

Charlie is an English actor. He is the second oldest out of four boys. He was discovered in a shoe store at the age of 9 and cast in the British television show, Byker Grove. After that, Charlie landed his first big role as Nathan Maloney in the controversial British show, Queer as Folk. In 1999, Charlie met Katharine Towne and they married several weeks later. However, they divorced in 2002. Charlie made his big screen debut in the Paramount thriller Abandon and continued to gain attention for his performance in the title role of the big screen adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel Nicholas Nickelby, which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture. He next appeared as “Bosie” in the Miramax feature Cold Mountain for director Anthony Minghella based on the best-selling novel by Charles Frazier.

In addition to his acting talents, Charlie completed his first screenplay entitled VLAD. This project is set up at Summit Entertainment with Eric Feig and Plan B producing, and Anthony Mandler set to direct.

• Don’t get me wrong. I hang out with my friends, but I basically am very, very driven to work. I read everything that comes through my agent, like ten scripts a week. I’m going to try to negotiate my career with zero compromise and do exactly the work that I want to do. If I can’t get that work, then I’m just not going to work.
• (on preferring American films over British films) I grew up obsessed with film and although you know a portion of that was English films, the vast majority of it were the great American filmmakers whose work I would watch over and over.
• I always liked the analogy of being an actor is sort of like being a prize fighter, you can live your life the way you want to, but once you know you have a fight coming up, your focus becomes absolutely singular, and you’re on task, and you learn as much as you can about your opponent, and you prepare yourself as thoroughly as possible, so that when you step into the ring you have all the tools at your disposal to get the job done.
• (on why he doesn’t take every role he is offered; in a 2003 interview) I have 60 years to make the money, but the choices I make in the next five years are really going to define my career.
• I love hip hop music, I make hip hop music. I’m an Eminem fan, he’s a good MC but I like Wu Tang Clan, they’re more my flavour.
• There are so many opportunities in LA. There are many good film makers working out of England and while I don’t know the exact figures I can’t imagine that there are many more than 15 films made a year while Hollywood makes 500 films a year. The truth of the matter is the real industry is in LA and the cream of the talent is there.
• I always think it’s better to take a smaller role in a great film rather than a leading role in something that you don’t have complete faith in.
• (on his role in “Green Street”) I knew nothing about football at all. I had never been to a football match and never watched it on TV. Being a film fan, if I had 90 minutes to spare, I was going to watch a film, not a football match.
• (on being constantly compared to Brad Pitt) There are definitely worse people to be compared to. [Laughs] I think Brad Pitt makes interesting decisions. In the early part of your career you’re always compared with somebody until you can stand on your own two feet.