Rufus Frederik Sewell (/ˈsuːəl/; born 29 October 1967) is an English actor. He has appeared in films such as Hamlet, The Woodlanders, Dangerous Beauty, Dark City, A Knight\'s Tale, The Illusionist, Tristan and Isolde, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. On television, he has starred in Middlemarch, The Man in the High Castle, Zen, The Pillars of the Earth, Charles II: The Power and The Passion, Holiday and Eleventh Hour. On stage, he originated the role of Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard\'s Arcadia and the role of Jan in Stoppard\'s Rock \'n\' Roll, with the latter earning him an Olivier Award and a Tony Award nomination.\n', '

Rufus Frederik Sewell was born in Twickenham on 29 October 1967, the son of Jo, a Welsh artist, classically-trained pianist and waitress, and William John Frederick Sewell (1924-1978), an Australian animator and former builder\'s labourer. His father worked on the "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" segment of animation for The Beatles\' Yellow Submarine film. His parents divorced when Sewell was five, and his mother worked in a pub and selling vegetables to support him and his brother Caspar. William died when Sewell was 10. Sewell\'s mother subsequently lived at The Pelican, Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, formerly home to the parents of Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas. Sewell has said that he was a difficult teenager.\n', '

Sewell was educated at Orleans Park School, a state comprehensive school in Twickenham, which he left in 1984, followed by West Thames College, where a drama teacher sent him to audition for drama school. He later enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.\n', '

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