O-T Fagbenle
Encyclopedia
O. T. Fagbenle is a British actor. He has appeared in several films, stage and television productions.

Early life

Born 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...

 to a Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

n father and a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 mother, Fagbenle moved to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 as a child and started learning the alto saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...

. Within a year he was playing for the South Coast Jazz Band and toured the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

. He moved back to England where he continued to perform as a musician in big bands at the Wembley Arena
Wembley Arena
Wembley Arena is an indoor arena, at Wembley, in the London Borough of Brent. The building is opposite Wembley Stadium.-History:...

 and the Royal Albert Hall
Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....

.

Theatre

He started acting at the age of 14 for the Ritual Theatre Arts and was given the lead role in an adaptation of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...

, performing at international venues and at central London's Bloomsbury Theatre
The UCL Bloomsbury
The Bloomsbury Theatre is a theatre on Gordon Street, Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, owned by University College London.The Theatre has a seating capacity of 535 and offers a professional programme of innovative music, drama, comedy and dance all year round.Funded by a UGC grant and a...

. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and graduated early to make his graduate debut at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Les Blancs in 2001.

Fagbenle continued his Shakespearean roles performing in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

as Mercutio
Mercutio
Mercutio a fictional character in William Shakespeare's 1597 tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He is a close friend of Romeo, and Romeo's cousin Benvolio, and also a blood relative to Prince Escalus and Count Paris. As such, being neither a Montague nor a Capulet, Mercutio is one of the few in Verona...

 in a national tour culminating at the Hong Kong Arts Festival
Hong Kong Arts Festival
Hong Kong Arts Festival , founded in 1973, is a focus programmes for the Culture of Hong Kong, in order to provides a wide range of art programmes from all over the world....

 2004 the evening telegraph said of his performance 'O T Fagbenle achieves the impossible by almost overshadowing the young lovers with his inspired performance of Mercutio'.

Fagbenle was soon offered his first all out lead. Outstanding reviews preceded a M.E.N.
Manchester Evening News
The Manchester Evening News is a regional daily newspaper covering Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. It is published every day except Sunday and is owned by Trinity Mirror plc following its sale by Guardian Media Group in early 2010. It has an average daily circulation of 90,973 copies...

 Theatre award for best actor in a leading role for his portrayal of a man claiming to be Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...

's son in John Guare
John Guare
John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...

's award-winning play Six Degrees of Separation.

In 2008, Fagbenle flew to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 for world-renowned theatre director Peter Brook
Peter Brook
Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...

, to help workshop and develop Brook's international production of Tierno Bokar.

Fagbenle played the role of Sportin' Life, in Sir Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...

's award winning production of Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

at the Savoy Theatre
Savoy Theatre
The Savoy Theatre is a West End theatre located in the Strand in the City of Westminster, London, England. The theatre opened on 10 October 1881 and was built by Richard D'Oyly Carte on the site of the old Savoy Palace as a showcase for the popular series of comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,...

 in the West End of London
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...

 (a part played by Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

 in the opera and Sammy Davis Jr. in the feature film). Fagbenle received outstanding reviews across the board, Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

 magazine's review remarked 'There are moments everything take wing as a musical, mostly whenever Fagbenle's splendidly serpentine, easeful Sportin' Life is around. Light on his feet, his every moment is poised and polished.'

Film

Fagbenle has also appeared in Academy award-winning director Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella
Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....

's movie Breaking and Entering
Breaking and Entering (film)
Gabriel Yared and Underworld collaborated on the film's original music score.-External links:* at TIFF, by Andrea Miller /CANOE Live...

with Jude Law
Jude Law
David Jude Heyworth Law , known professionally as Jude Law, is an English actor, film producer and director.He began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre in 1987, and had his first television role in 1989...

 and Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...

.

Fagbenle portrayed Sean, an American television star who has an on-screen relationship with Stacey Dash
Stacey Dash
Stacey Lauretta Dash is an American film and television actress.-Career:She made her first TV appearance in Farrell for the People starring Valerie Harper and a virtually unknown Ed O'Neill in 1982, which did not make it past its pilot episode...

, the self-obsessed Brianna in Amy Heckerling
Amy Heckerling
Amy Heckerling is an American film director, one of the few female directors to have produced multiple box-office hits.-Early life:...

's I Could Never Be Your Woman
I Could Never Be Your Woman
I Could Never Be Your Woman is a 2007 American romantic comedy film directed and written by Amy Heckerling and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. The film was released on May 11 in Spain, July 18 in Belgium, September 14 in Brazil, September 20 in Greece and October 19 in Taiwan...

.

Television

Fagbenle starred in a sitcom for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 called Grownups and the British TV series Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

's Marple
Marple (TV series)
Marple is a British television series based on the Miss Marple and other murder mystery novels by Agatha Christie. It is also known as Agatha Christie's Marple. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to third series, until her retirement from the role. She was replaced...

.
He also played 'Other Dave' in the two part Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

 story Silence in the Library
Silence in the Library
"Silence in the Library" is the eighth episode of the fourth series of the revived British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on 31 May 2008. It is the first of a two-part story, followed by "Forest of the Dead", and is the second two-parter Steven Moffat contributed to...

and Forest of the Dead
Forest of the Dead
"Forest of the Dead" is the ninth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast by BBC One on 7 June 2008...

.
He starred in Little Miss Jocelyn
Little Miss Jocelyn
Little Miss Jocelyn is a British TV sketch comedy written by and starring Jocelyn Jee Esien. The show is made up of studio sketches and hidden camera footage in which unsuspecting members of the public become part of a sketch.-History:...

as Mrs Owukupopo dead husband (number 2) and was a deliver guy (2004 - 2006) in Little Miss Jocelyn BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.
Fagbenle starred in two dramas for the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, including the role of Walter Tull
Walter Tull
Walter Daniel John Tull was an English professional footballer who played as an inside forward for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town...

 in Walter's War, a biopic of the first mixed-heritage officer in the British Army in which he again garnered outstanding international reviews

In January 2010 Fagbenle appeared as Chris in the BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

 flagship show Material Girl
Material Girl (TV series)
Material Girl is a British romantic comedy produced by Carnival Films, that first aired on BBC One on 14 January 2010. It stars Lenora Crichlow, Dervla Kirwan and Michael Landes.Set in the fashion world, it was inspired by the book Fashion Babylon...

, starring Dervla Kirwan
Dervla Kirwan
Dervla Kirwan is an Irish actress famous for roles in British television shows such as Ballykissangel and Goodnight Sweetheart...

 (Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

) and Lenora Crichlow
Lenora Crichlow
Lenora Isabella Crichlow is a British actress best known for playing Annie in the science fiction drama Being Human.-Background:...

 (Being Human
Being Human (TV series)
Being Human is a British supernatural drama television series. It was created and written by Toby Whithouse and is currently broadcast on BBC Three. The show blends elements of flatshare comedy and horror drama...

, Sugar Rush
Sugar Rush (TV series)
Sugar Rush is an Emmy Award–winning British television comedy drama series developed by Shine Limited and broadcast by Channel 4, based on the Julie Burchill novel of the same name...

). Off the back of his performance he went on to be cast in the American romantic comedy 'Double Wedding' and a lead in the film adaptation of the best selling Mark Billingham
Mark Billingham
Mark Philip David Billingham is an English novelist whose series of "Tom Thorne" crime novels are best-sellers in that particular genre. He is also a television screenwriter and has become a familiar face as an actor and comic....

 novel 'Sleepyhead'.

After a successful production by 24 producer Stephen Hopkins
Stephen Hopkins
Stephen Hopkins may refer to:* Stephen Hopkins , Mayflower passenger, first mayor of Plymouth, father of only baby born during the trip aboard the Mayflower...

, a sequel of sleepyhead was commissioned again with O-T as a lead but this time starring opposite Emmy award winning actress Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh
Sandra Oh is a Canadian actress. She is best known for the role of Dr. Cristina Yang on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, for which she has won a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild award. She also played notable roles in the feature films Under the Tuscan Sun and Sideways, and had a supporting role on the...

.

Radio

For several months in 2004 he took the part of Kwame in the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...

 radio soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Westway.

He has performed multiple times for the BBC including the lead role in Six Degrees of Separation, playing Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

 in a biopic, and two roles in the BBC Radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

 adaptation of The Color Purple
The Color Purple
The Color Purple is an acclaimed 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker. It received the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction...

, which went on to win the Sony Radio Academy Awards
Sony Radio Academy Awards
The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...

 for Drama in 2009.

Writing

In 2008 he authored an article which appeared in a double page spread in the national Nigerian newspaper The Guardian about the life and times of Walter Tull.

Music

Along with a starring actor credit, Fagbenle composed the music and penned the lyrics for several songs for the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 drama Quarterlife, created by Marshall Herskovitz
Marshall Herskovitz
Marshall Schreiber Herskovitz is an American film director, writer and producer, and currently the President Emeritus of the Producers Guild of America. Among his productions are Traffic, The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, and I Am Sam. Herskovitz has directed two feature films, Jack the Bear and...

 and Ed Zwick.

In 2011 O-T Co-wrote the song - 'Storm' which was released by Tyga
Tyga
Michael Stevenson , better known by his stage name Tyga , is an American rapper signed to Young Money Entertainment, Cash Money Records and Universal Republic Records. He is of Vietnamese and Jamaican descent...

 on his Black Thoughts Vol. 2 Mixtape. The song Features vocalist Stefano Moses, a long time musical collaborator with Fagbenle

Awards

Fagbenle has been honoured by 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...

 (of which Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 is patron) by being included in the 100 faces of RADA along with Sir Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...

, Clive Owen
Clive Owen
Clive Owen is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991...

 and Sir John Gielgud
John Gielgud
Sir Arthur John Gielgud, OM, CH was an English actor, director, and producer. A descendant of the renowned Terry acting family, he achieved early international acclaim for his youthful, emotionally expressive Hamlet which broke box office records on Broadway in 1937...

.

Fagbenle was awarded Best Actor in a Leading role at the M.E.N. awards for his performance in Six Degrees of Separation.

In October 2006, Fagbenle was greeted with critical acclaim for his performance in Trevor Nunn
Trevor Nunn
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn, CBE is an English theatre, film and television director. Nunn has been the Artistic Director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He has directed musicals and dramas for the stage, as well as opera...

's Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

–winning world premiere of Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess is an opera, first performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward. It was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward...

 The Musical
.

In 2008 he was the recipient of an Outstanding Achievement Award at the 13th African film Awards.

Selected filmography

  • EastEnders
    EastEnders
    EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

    (2002), Angels
  • 420 Seconds of Love (2002), Ben
  • As If
    As If
    As If is a British comedy-drama series broadcast on Channel 4. There were 76 episodes across four series, the first broadcast on January 22, 2001 and the last on July 31, 2004.-Premise & Facts:...

    (2004) TV drama, Tyler
  • Casualty (2004), Terry O'Brien
  • Hollyoaks
    Hollyoaks
    Hollyoaks is a long-running British television soap opera, first broadcast on Channel 4 on 23 October 1995. It was originally devised by Phil Redmond, who has also devised shows including Brookside and Grange Hill...

    (2004), James Walker
  • Doctors Between the Lines (2005), Todd Dexter
  • Breaking and Entering
    Breaking and Entering (film)
    Gabriel Yared and Underworld collaborated on the film's original music score.-External links:* at TIFF, by Andrea Miller /CANOE Live...

    (2006), Joe
  • Grownups (2006), Dean
  • I Could Never Be Your Woman
    I Could Never Be Your Woman
    I Could Never Be Your Woman is a 2007 American romantic comedy film directed and written by Amy Heckerling and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. The film was released on May 11 in Spain, July 18 in Belgium, September 14 in Brazil, September 20 in Greece and October 19 in Taiwan...

    (2006), Sean
  • Marple: By the Pricking of My Thumbs
    By the Pricking of My Thumbs (novel)
    By The Pricking of My Thumbs is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in November 1968 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at twenty-one shillings and the US edition at $4.95...

    (2006), Chris Murphy
  • Poppies (2006), Michael
  • Doctor Who
    Doctor Who
    Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

    (2008), Other Dave - "Silence in the Library
    Silence in the Library
    "Silence in the Library" is the eighth episode of the fourth series of the revived British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on 31 May 2008. It is the first of a two-part story, followed by "Forest of the Dead", and is the second two-parter Steven Moffat contributed to...

    "
  • Radio Cape Cod
    Radio Cape Cod
    Radio Cape Cod is a 2008 film directed and produced by Andrew Silver. It stars Tamzin Outhwaite as a radio interviewer coming to terms with the loss of her husband and a new love entering her life. She also must cope with her teenage daughter, played by Tamzin Merchant, who is experiencing her...

    (2008), Sunday Umankwe
  • Walter's War (2008), Walter Tull - first black commissioned officer in the British Army
  • Double Wedding
    Double Wedding
    Double Wedding is a 1937 romantic comedy film. A bohemian free spirit helps meek Waldo win back his fiancée and falls in love with her over-controlling sister in the process....

    (2010), Tate

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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