Benn Northover

Benn Northover
Benn Northover (Photo by Andrew H. Walker)
Born	(1978-01-03) 3 January 1978 [1] Suffolk
Nationality	English

Benn Northover (born 3 January 1978) is a British actor, filmmaker and artist.^[2][3]

Film credits include Lotus Eaters,^[4] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, House of Boys,^[5] crime thriller Tutti i rumori del mare^[6] and director Mike Figgis' Lucrezia Borgia.^[7]

Early life

Northover was born in Ipswich, Suffolk. After high school he studied art and film before moving to New York to study drama The Stella Adler Studio.

Career

Northover's early screen appearances included TV dramas Ultimate Force and Silent Witness. In 2008 he was cast as the lead in gritty TV drama, Hostage to Terror,^[8] for which he received The Times Critics Choice. He later reunited with director Finn McGough on TV drama Avalanche of Terror^[9] about British climber Ken Jones. The series received critical acclaim around the world.

In 2010 Northover made his feature film debut in the hard hitting AIDS drama House of Boys opposite Stephen Fry and Udo Kier. Northover underwent a crash diet shedding 30 lbs to play the film's lead character, a young prostitute living with AIDS in the early 1980s. The film went on to receive several international awards. Northover appeared in the 7th installment of the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In an interview with Paper Magazine,^[10] he later described his experience on the Harry Potter production as "the biggest machine I have ever encountered."

In 2011 he starred in the hit indie feature Lotus Eaters^[11] opposite Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Johnny Flynn and the film adaptation of Donizetti's opera Lucrezia Borgia by director Mike Figgis. Lotus Eaters would go on to be a hit at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In 2012 Italian director Federico Brugia cast Northover as the villain in his human trafficking thriller Tutti i rumori del mare.^[12] Set in the bleak underworld of the Hungarian human trafficking business. Northover later commented on his character in an interview with AnOther Magazine^[13] saying "It's his personal demons that keep his conscience at a safe distance and eventually it's his human weaknesses that get the better of him." The film went on to win the special jury prize at the Annecy Italian Film Festival.

In 2014 Northover appeared in Je m'appelle Hmmm..., the directorial debut by agnès b., and in Frédéric Auburtin's epic ensemble film United Passions as Max Kahn, one of the founding members of FIFA, alongside Gérard Depardieu and Tim Roth.

In 2015 Northover narrated the feature documentary Marlon Brando: An Actor Named Desire, alongside Robert Duvall and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Other art and cinema projects

As an artist and filmmaker, Northover has directed several film and video projects, including music videos for artists such as Nick Drake, The The and David Bowie's Melt Down Festival. His photographic work was appeared in a number of international exhibition and publications including Italian Vogue,^[14] Dazed and Confused, Animae Mag and AnOther Magazine.

For over a decade he has been a close collaborator with legendary artist and filmmaker Jonas Mekas, leading to several film and video projects and a number of international gallery exhibitions including the Centre Pompidou and agnès b.'s Galerie du Jour in Paris. In 2012 Northover co-curated a landmark exhibition of underground cinema, with work by Mekas at the prestigious Serpentine Gallery in London alongside Hans-Ulrich Obrist.

Northover is a long time supporter and board member of the Anthology Film Archives, the legendary archive and cinema dedicated to the preservation and exhibition of independent cinema.

Filmography

References