Personal life

Born in Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1960, Cullen was son to Tony Cullen, a founding member of the Northern Sinfonia

Northern Sinfonia

The Northern Sinfonia is a British chamber orchestra, based initially in Newcastle upon Tyne, and currently in Gateshead. For the first 46 years of its history, the orchestra gave the bulk of its concerts at the City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Since 2004, the orchestra has been resident at The...

. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School

Royal Grammar School, Newcastle

Royal Grammar School Newcastle upon Tyne, known locally and often abbreviated as RGS, is a long-established co-educational, independent school in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It gained its Royal Charter under Queen Elizabeth I...

, Newcastle, and went on to take a French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and Philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 degree at New College

New College, Oxford

New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...

, Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

. Despite his involvement with the Oxford University Dramatic Society

Oxford University Dramatic Society

The Oxford University Dramatic Society is the principal funding body and provider of theatrical services to the many independent student productions put on by students in Oxford, England...

 and acting in thirteen productions during his time at New College, he graduated with honours in 1982.

Career

After graduating at Oxford, he went on to train for a career in drama at Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, leaving in May 1995 to appear at West Yorkshire Playhouse

West Yorkshire Playhouse

The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, England is a theatre which opened in March 1990 as part of the regeneration of the Quarry Hill area of the city...

, Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, making his professional debut. Alongside his acting career, Cullen also now works as a director and as a teacher at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art is a drama school located in London, United Kingdom. It is generally regarded as one of the most renowned drama schools in the world, and is one of the oldest drama schools in the United Kingdom, having been founded in 1904.RADA is an affiliate school of the...

 (RADA) in London, the American Conservatory Theater

American Conservatory Theater

American Conservatory Theater is a large non-profit theater company in San Francisco, California, that offers both classical and contemporary theater productions. A.C.T. was founded in 1965 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and Carnegie Tech by theatre and...

 School in San Francisco, and the British American Drama Academy

British American Drama Academy

The British American Drama Academy is a drama school in the United Kingdom.Background=The British American Drama Academy was founded in 1983 to enable students from around the world to study classical theatre with leading actors and directors of the British theatre...

 also in London.

Theatre

Cullen's work in theatre includes: Market Boy, Albert Speer

Albert Speer

Albert Speer, born Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer, was a German architect who was, for a part of World War II, Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich. Speer was Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming ministerial office...

, Ghetto

Ghetto (play)

Ghetto is a play by Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol about the experiences of the Jews of the Vilna Ghetto during Nazi occupation in World War II. The play focuses on the Jewish theatre in the ghetto, incorporating live music and including as characters historical figures such as Jacob Gens, the...

, Fuente Ovejuna

Fuente Ovejuna

Fuenteovejuna is a play by the Spanish playwright, Lope de Vega. First published in Madrid in 1619 as part of Docena Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio , the play is believed to have been written between 1612 and 1614...

, Bartholomew Fair and The Strangeness of Others at the National Theatre

Royal National Theatre

The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

, London; Tis Pity She's a Whore and A Woman Killed with Kindness

A Woman Killed with Kindness

A Woman Killed with Kindness is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Heywood. Acted in 1603 and first published in 1607, the play has generally been considered Heywood's masterpiece, and has received the most critical attention among Heywood's works...

for the RSC

Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

; Nightsongs, Under the Blue Sky

Under the Blue Sky

Under the Blue Sky is a three-act play written by David Eldridge. It premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 14 September 2000, directed by Rufus Norris.-Original West End Production:...

, Our Late Night, Rafts and Dreams Talking to Terrorists

Talking to Terrorists

Talking to Terrorists is a play written by Robin Soans. It was first performed at the Theatre Royal, Bury St. Edmunds, England, on 21 April 2005. The play is written in the style of verbatim theatre where all of the dialogue is taken from real interviews and then recreated on stage...

and Gibraltar Strait/Falkland Sound at the Royal Court

Royal Court Theatre

The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...

, London; Our Country's Good

Our Country's Good

Our Country's Good is a 1988 play written by British playwright, Timberlake Wertenbaker, adapted from the Thomas Keneally novel The Playmaker. The story concerns a group of Royal Marines and convicts in a penal colony in New South Wales, in the 1780s, who put on a production of The Recruiting...

for Out of Joint

Out of Joint theatre company

Out of Joint is a British and international touring theatre company based in London. It specialises in the commissioning and production of new writing, interspersed with occasional revivals and classic productions....

 at the Young Vic, London; Grace Note at the Old Vic

Old Vic

The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...

, London; Chatsky at the Almeida Theatre

Almeida Theatre

The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...

, London; Dr Faustus

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, commonly referred to simply as Doctor Faustus, is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the Faust story, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge...

at Greenwich Theatre

Greenwich Theatre

The Greenwich Theatre is a local theatre located in Croom's Hill close to the centre of Greenwich in south-east London.-Building history:The building was originally a music hall created in 1855 as part of the neighbouring Rose and Crown public house, but the Rose and Crown Music Hall was...

, London; Morning and Evening at Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...

, London; The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and one of the foremost Soviet satires, directed against a...

, Nathan the Wise and The Seagull

The Seagull

The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...

at the Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre

Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....

; Goodbye Gilbert Harding at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth

Theatre Royal, Plymouth

The Theatre Royal in Plymouth, Devon, England is "the largest and best attended regional producing theatre in the UK and the leading promoter of theatre in the south west", according to Arts Council England...

 and on tour; The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a tragic comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Though classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is perhaps most remembered for its dramatic...

at the Crucible Theatre

Crucible Theatre

The Crucible Theatre is a theatre built in 1971 and located in the city centre of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. As well as theatrical performances, it is home to the most important event in professional snooker, the World Snooker Championship....

, Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

; Venice Preserv'd

Venice Preserv'd

Venice Preserv'd is an English Restoration play written by Thomas Otway, and the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s. It was staged first in 1682, with Thomas Betterton as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry as Belvidera...

at the Royal Exchange

Royal Exchange, Manchester

The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed Victorian building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann’s Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street...

; Vieux Carré

Vieux Carré (play)

Vieux Carré is a play by Tennessee Williams. It is an autobiographical play set in New Orleans. Although he began writing it shortly after moving to New Orleans in 1938, it wasn't completed until nearly forty years later.- Plot synopsis :...

at Nottingham Playhouse

Nottingham Playhouse

The Nottingham Playhouse is a theatre in Nottingham, England. It was first established as a repertory theatre in the 1950s when it operated from a former cinema. Directors during this period included Val May and Frank Dunlop.-The building:...

; Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms is a play by Eugene O'Neill, published in 1924, and is now considered an American classic. Along with Mourning Becomes Electra, it represents one of O'Neill's attempts to place plot elements and themes of Greek tragedy in a rural New England setting. It is essentially a...

for Shared Experience

Shared Experience

Shared Experience is a British theatre company. Its current joint artistic directors are Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale. Kate Saxon is an Associate Director.-Productions:*A Passage to India *Madame Bovary...

; Equus

Equus (play)

Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses....

, Feelgood and The Clandestine Marriage

The Clandestine Marriage

The Clandestine Marriage is a comedy by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick, first performed in 1766 at Drury Lane. The idea came from one of William Hogarth's engravings.-Plot summary:...

in the West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

. He has recently appeared in Happy Now?

Happy Now?

Happy Now? is a play by Lucinda Coxon, first staged at the National Theatre, London in 2008.-Plot:After a conversation with Michael, a middle aged businessman, at a conference hotel, Kitty begins to wonder what life is really all about as she desperately tries to balance family life with personal...

, a new play by Lucinda Coxon

Lucinda Coxon

-Plays:Coxon's plays include Nostalgia and Vesuvius at South Coast Repertory, California; Improbabilities at Soho Poly; Wishbones and Waiting at the Water's Edge at the Bush Theatre, London; Three Graces at Lakeside Theatre, Colchester and the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester...

, and in Love the Sinner at the National Theatre, London.

Television

His TV credits include: Ghostboat, Why We Went to War, Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...

and Dalziel and Pascoe

Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC TV series)

Dalziel and Pascoe is a popular British television crime drama based on the Dalziel and Pascoe books by Reginald Hill, which was first broadcast in March 1996. It is set in Yorkshire, and is about two detectives...

.

Film

Cullen's film appearances include: Poppy Shakespeare

Poppy Shakespeare

Poppy Shakespeare is a novel about mental illness by Clare Allan. It tells the story of day patients at a mental health hospital. The central characters are Poppy Shakespeare, a new patient, and "N", a long term patient. Poppy arrives at the hospital strongly asserting that she is sane and...

, Fred Claus

Fred Claus

Fred Claus is a 2007 Christmas family-comedy film produced and directed by David Dobkin, written by Dan Fogelman and Jessie Nelson, and starring Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti.-Plot:...

, Finding Neverland

Finding Neverland

Finding Neverland is a 2004 semi-biographical film about playwright J. M. Barrie and his relationship with a family who inspired him to create Peter Pan, directed by Marc Forster. The screenplay by David Magee is based on the play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee...

and Velvet Goldmine

Velvet Goldmine

Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 British/American drama film directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. The film tells the story of a pop star based mainly on David Bowie's 'Ziggy Stardust' character and is set in Britain during the days of glam rock in the early 1970s.Sandy Powell received another Academy...

.