Biography
David Warner (born July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England) is a English actor who often plays sinister characters.
Warner was trained at RADA, before making an impact with the Royal Shakespeare Company, where his portrayal of Hamlet quickly made him famous. In 1963, he made his film debut in Tom Jones, and in 1965 starred as King Henry VI of England in the BBC production of Shakespeare's "Wars of the Roses" cycle. Another early television role included starring alongside Bob Dylan in the 1963 play The Madhouse on Castle Street. A major step in his career was the leading role in Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966), which established his reputation for playing slightly off-the-wall characters.
Since then, he has specialised in playing villains, in films such as The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978), Time After Time (1979), Time Bandits (1981) (going all the way by playing a character named "Evil Genius") and Tron (1982), and television series such as Batman: The Animated Series playing "Ra's Al Ghul" as well as rogue agent Alpha in the animated Men in Black series. He was also cast against type as Henry Niles in Straw Dogs (1971) and as Bob Crachit in the 1984 telefilm of A Christmas Carol. In addition, he played Nazi strongman Reinhard Heydrich in the movie SS - Portrait in Evil, and the television mini-series Holocaust.
He has appeared in movies such as The Omen, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Titanic (the third time he has appeared in a film about RMS Titanic), Scream 2, and more recently in independent television's adaptation of the Hornblower series (which starred Ioan Gruffudd, Warner's co-star on Titanic). He appeared in three episodes of the second series of Twin Peaks (1991). He also continues to play classical roles. In "Chain of Command", a 6th-season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he was a Cardassian interrogator. He based his portrayal on the evil "re-educator" from 1984.
On the "nice guy" side, he played the charismatic Aldous Gajic in Grail, a first-season episode of Babylon 5. He also portrayed the sympathetic character of Capt. Kiesel in Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron. In an episode of Lois & Clark he played Superman's deceased Kryptonian father Jor-El, who appeared to his son through holographic recordings.
Warner has performed in many audio plays, starring in the Doctor Who "Unbound" play Sympathy for the Devil (2003) as an alternative version of the Doctor, and in a series of plays based on ITV's Sapphire & Steel as Steel, both for Big Finish Productions. He will reprise his incarnation of the Doctor in a sequel, The Dark Palace. He also guest starred in the BBC Radio 4 Sci-Fi comedy Nebulous (2005) as Professor Nebulous' arch-enemy Dr. Klench. In all these productions Warner has worked with writer and comedian Mark Gatiss of the League of Gentlemen, and plays a guest role in the League's 2005 feature film The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse.
He has also contributed voice acting to a number of computer games, most notably playing the villain Jon Irenicus in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Morpheus in Fallout.
On the Cartoon Network animated television series The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, David provides the voice of Nergal, a demonic creature from the Earth's core that is obessed with making friends.
On 30 October 2005 he appeared on stage at the Old Vic theatre in London in the one-night play Night Sky alongside Christopher Eccleston, Bruno Langley, Navin Chowdhry, Saffron Burrows and David Baddiel.
In the Disney/Square-Enix video game Kingdom Hearts II, David will reprise his Tron roles as Sark and the MCP. [1]
Trivia
David Warner is the only actor to have a major guest role as two completely different characters in two successive Star Trek movies. He played Federation Ambassador St. John Talbot in Star Trek V and the progressive Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI. He also portrayed the erudite and scholarly but ruthlessly cruel Cardassian torturer Gul Madred in the Next Generation two-part episode "Chain of Command."
David Warner voiced the character of Zarm in the animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, a character who sought to destroy the Earth's environment, generally favoring human development as uncontrolled technological development would ruin the environment. At the same time, he also voiced the character of Ra's Al Ghul on Batman: The Animated Series, a character whose main goal in life was to preserve the Earth's environment, even if it meant wiping out the human population to do so. Both men were villains with opposite ideals. Coincidentally, Malcolm McDowell, the third actor to voice Zarm, also voiced Arkady Duvall, Ra's Al Ghul's son in Batman: The Animated Series.
