The Biography

Adrian John Rawlins (born 27 March 1958, Stoke-on-Trent) is an English actor who studied art and acting at Manchester Metropolitan University and has been active since 1980. He is best known for playing James Potter across all eight Harry Potter films (2001–2011), Arthur Kidd in the 1989 TV film The Woman in Black, and Nikolai Fomin in the 2019 HBO miniseries Chernobyl. He also appeared in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996), Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself (2002), and Darkest Hour (2017) as Air Chief Marshal Dowding. His broader filmography includes Revolution (1985), Mountains of the Moon (1990), Living (2022), One Life (2023), and the upcoming The Brink of War (2026). On television he has had recurring roles in Soldier Soldier (1993), Dickensian (2015–2016), Slow Horses (2022), Moonflower Murders (2024), and Patience (2025). Since 2017 he has served as artistic director of East Riding Theatre.