Paul James Crook (born 29 September 1971), known professionally as Mackenzie Crook, is an English actor, director, comedian and BAFTA-winning writer. He is best known for playing Gareth Keenan in The Office, Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, and Orell in the HBO series Game of Thrones, and is the creator and star of BBC Four\'s Detectorists.\n', '

Crook was born in Maidstone, Kent, and grew up in Dartford, Kent. He is the son of Michael Crook, a British Airways employee, and Sheila Crook, a hospital manager. As a child he received a course of hormone therapy for three years to treat a growth hormone deficiency. In the summers, he spent time at his uncle\'s tobacco farm in northern Zimbabwe, where he developed his love for painting.\n', '

One of Crook\'s earliest television appearances was in the 1998 Channel 4 sketch show Barking, as a grotesque schoolteacher called Mr Bagshaw who is said to be based on a variety of obnoxious, overbearing science teachers he was taught by while in school.\n', '

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