Peter Serafinowicz

Offbeat, highly individualistic British character player Peter Serafinowicz broke into film courtesy of radio, with a head-turning contribution to a tongue-in-cheek documentary about the music industry on England's Radio 1, entitled The Knowledge. That led, in turn, to a wealth of voice assignments on various Radio 4 series, including Grievous Bodily Radio, Harry Hill's Fruit Corner, and Weekending. Serafinowicz segued into features with a plum role in 1997's Murder Most Horrid before making a splash as Brian May on the spoof-heavy BBC sketch comedy program Comedy Nation in the late '90s, alongside Sacha Baron Cohen and others; unfortunately, it was somewhat short-lived, though successive projects afforded Serafinowicz greater exposure. He found his bread and butter on British television, in series including Spaced and World of Pub, but broke into features with roles in the outrageous horror comedy spoof Shaun of the Dead (2004) and the gentle period coming-of-age drama Sixty Six (2006).