Watch James Purefoy Videos

James Brian Mark Purefoy (born 3 June 1964) is an English actor best known for portraying Mark Antony in the HBO series Rome. Purefoy was born in Taunton, Somerset. He was a boarder at Sherborne School, Sherborne, Dorset which he left with only one O-level. Later he went to night school and got 11 more, then took his A-levels. He worked at Yeovil District Hospital as a porter before studying acting at the British drama school the Central School of Speech and Drama, while trying to sell copies of the Socialist Worker in his spare time. Purefoy's early professional roles included Romeo in... MORE

James Brian Mark Purefoy (born 3 June 1964) is an English actor best known for portraying Mark Antony in the HBO series Rome. Purefoy was born in Taunton, Somerset. He was a boarder at Sherborne School, Sherborne, Dorset which he left with only one O-level. Later he went to night school and got 11 more, then took his A-levels. He worked at Yeovil District Hospital as a porter before studying acting at the British drama school the Central School of Speech and Drama, while trying to sell copies of the Socialist Worker in his spare time. Purefoy's early professional roles included Romeo in Romeo and Juliet in Leatherhead, Walter in Mary Morgan at the Riverside Studios and Alan Strang in Equus on tour. Purefoy subsequently joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1988 and appeared in The Constant Couple, Macbeth, The Tempest, The Man Who Came to Dinner (Gene Saks, Barbican) and King Lear as Edgar. Elsewhere, he has also appeared as Laertes in Hamlet at the Bristol Old Vic (1991) Brian in William Gaminara's Back Up the Hearse and Let them Sniff the Flowers at the Hampstead Theatre (1992), Roland Maule in Noel Coward's Present Laughter at the Globe Theatre (1993), Biff in Death of a LESS