Dexter Fletcher

Dexter Fletcher (born 31 January 1966) is an English film director and actor. He has appeared in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, as well as in television shows such as the comedy-drama Hotel Babylon, the HBO series Band of Brothers and, earlier in his career, starred as Spike Thomson in the comedy-drama Press Gang. His earliest acting role was playing Baby Face in the 1976 film Bugsy Malone.

Dexter Fletcher
Fletcher at the 58th BFI London Film Festival in 2014
Born	31 January 1966 Enfield, Greater London, England
Occupation	Director, writer, actor
Years active	1976–present
Spouse(s)	Dalia Ibelhauptaitė ​ (m. 1997)​

Fletcher made his directorial debut with Wild Bill (2011), and also directed Sunshine on Leith (2013) and Eddie the Eagle (2015). He replaced Bryan Singer as director of Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic about the band Queen, released in October 2018; due to DGA rules, he received executive producer credit. In 2019 he directed Rocketman, a film based on the life of Elton John.

Career

Fletcher trained at the Anna Scher Theatre.[1] His first film part was as Baby Face in Bugsy Malone (1976). He made his stage début the following year in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As a youth actor he was regularly featured in British productions in the early 1980s, including The Long Good Friday, The Elephant Man and The Bounty. In 1987 Fletcher was cast in Lionheart. As an adult he appeared on television as the rebellious teenager Spike Thomson in Press Gang and in Murder Most Horrid (1991) with Dawn French. He has also starred in the films Caravaggio (1986), The Rachel Papers (1989), Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Layer Cake (2004), AffirmFilm's Solomon as Rehoboam and Universal's Doom.[2]

On television Fletcher has appeared in the major HBO drama, Band of Brothers and in a supporting role in the BBC One historical drama The Virgin Queen (US PBS 2005, UK 2006). He also appeared in Kylie Minogue's music video for "Some Kind of Bliss" (1997). He starred on BBC One in a series based on Imogen Edwards-Jones's book Hotel Babylon that ran for four series before being cancelled in 2009.[1] He also appeared in "The Booby and the Beast", an episode in the second series of the BBC's series Robin Hood and in the 2008 radio series The Way We Live Right Now. He appeared in the Bo' Selecta! spinoff A Bear's Tail as The Scriptwriter. He played a brief role in the BBC series New Tricks, in the episode "Final Curtain", as an actor named Tommy Jackson. In 2009, he also appeared in Misfits as Nathan Young's dad, reprising the role in 2010 for the second series.

Fletcher has been the voice for McDonald's television adverts and (feigning a US accent) is the narrator of The Game audio book written by Neil Strauss. He also narrated the Five series Airforce Afghanistan, as well as the Chop Shop: London Garage series on the Discovery Channel. In 1993, he was the voice of Prince Cinders in the short animated comedy of the same name. Also in 1993, he was the uncredited UNIT soldier narrator of the UNIT Recruiting Film - a five-minute spoof piece that preceded a BBC1 repeat of the sixth and final episode of Doctor Who story Planet of the Daleks.[3] In 2014 he narrated the BBC1 show Del Boys and Dealers. In 1998, Fletcher featured on the song "Here Comes the Flood" from the album Fin de Siecle by The Divine Comedy.

Directing

Fletcher's debut as a director was for a script he co-wrote, Wild Bill,[4] was released on 20 March 2012. His second film as director is a musical film by Stephen Greenhorn, Sunshine on Leith based around the popular Proclaimers songs which was released on 4 October 2013.[5] In 2015, he directed the feature film Eddie the Eagle. On 6 December 2017, Fletcher was announced as Bryan Singer's replacement director on the Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody. The film was released on 2 November 2018. While Fletcher had helped finish the film, Singer received sole directing credit and he received executive producer credit.[6] Fletcher's latest directing role was on Rocketman, a biopic about the life of Elton John.

Personal life

Fletcher was born in Enfield, North London, and grew up in Woodford Green and Palmers Green; his parents were teachers.[7]

In 1997 he married Lithuanian film and theatre director Dalia Ibelhauptaitė in Westminster.[8] His best man was fellow actor Alan Rickman.[1] Dexter's brothers were also actors; Graham Fletcher-Cook[9] and Steve Fletcher.[10]

Filmography

Year	Title	Credited as		Notes
		Director	Writer
1999	Let the Good Times Roll	No	Yes	Short film
2011	Wild Bill	Yes	Yes
2013	Sunshine on Leith	Yes	No
2015	Eddie the Eagle	Yes	No
2018	Bohemian Rhapsody	Uncredited	No	Replaced Bryan Singer as director for the final two weeks of filming. Received an executive producer credit in accordance with DGA rules.
2019	Rocketman	Yes	No

As executive producer

• Just for the Record (2010)
• Dead Cert (2010)
• Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

As actor

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1976	Bugsy Malone	Babyface
1978	Les Miserables	Gavroche	TV film
1979	The Long Good Friday	The boy who asks for money to watch Harold's car
1980	The Elephant Man	Byte's Boy
1984	The Bounty	Able Seaman Thomas Ellison
1985	Revolution	Ned Dobb
1986	Caravaggio	Young Caravaggio
1988	The Raggedy Rawney	Tom
1989	The Rachel Papers	Charles Highway
	Twisted Obsession	Malcolm Greene
1991	All Out	Angelo
1993	Prince Cinders	Prince Cinders
1996	Jude	Priest
1997	The Man Who Knew Too Little	Otto
1998	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels	Soap
1999	Topsy-Turvy	Louis
	Tube Tales	Joe	Segment: Mr Cool
2000	The Patriot	Cornwallis' tailor/valet
2002	Below	Kingsley
2003	Stander	Lee McCall
	The Deal	Charlie Whelan	TV film
2004	The Secret of Year Six	Mike
	Layer Cake	Cody
2005	Doom	Marcus "Pinky" Pinzerowski
2006	Tristan & Isolde	Orick
2007	Stardust	Skinny Pirate
2008	Autumn	Michael
2010	Kick-Ass	Cody
	Amaya	Frenchman
	Dead Cert	Eddie Christian
2011	Jack Falls	Detective Edwards
	Fedz	Hunter
	The Three Musketeers	D'Artagnan's father
	Wild Bill	Mysterious Barry
2012	Coven	Mr Sheers
2014	Muppets Most Wanted		Cameo; deleted scenes
	Respectable: The Mary Millington Story	Narrator
2018	Terminal	Vince
TBA	The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight	Val	Filming

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1989	Press Gang	James (Spike) Thomson	TV series
	The Bill	Tony Gillespie	Episode: "The Strong Survive"
1993-1994	GamesMaster	Presenter	Series 3
1997	Famous Five	Lou (one off)	TV series
2001	Band of Brothers	John Martin	TV series
2004	The Virgin Queen	Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex	TV series
2006–2009	Hotel Babylon	Tony Casemore	32 episodes
2007	Robin Hood	Count Friedrich	1 episode
2009	Misfits	Mike Young	TV series
2011	White Van Man	Ian	TV series
2013	Death in Paradise	Grant, The Cabin Barman	TV series
2014	Rev.	Mike Tobin	Episode: 3.3
	Mount Pleasant	Gus
2020	I Hate Suzie	Benjamin

References

1. "Dexter Fletcher". BBC Drama. Retrieved 2 December 2007.
2. "Dexter Fletcher". IMDb.
3. "UNIT Recruiting Film". Doctor Who Guide. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
4. acast (21 May 2019). "Dexter Fletcher • Distraction Pieces Podcast with Scroobius Pip #269 | Distraction Pieces Podcast with Scroobius Pip on acast". acast. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
5. "Curtis Brown". www.curtisbrown.co.uk.
6. Dexter Fletcher Replaces Bryan Singer On ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Deadline. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
7. "Fame and fortune: Dexter Fletcher". 14 February 2008. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 22 May 2019.
8. "Marriages England and Wales 1984–2005".
9. Graham Fletcher-Cook at IMDb
10. Steve Fletcher at IMDb

Bibliography

• Holmstrom, John. The Moving Picture Boy: An International Encyclopaedia from 1895 to 1995. Norwich, Michael Russell, 1996, pp. 358–360.

External links

• Dexter Fletcher at IMDb
• Interview with Dexter Fletcher