[alansplace]

Originally Posted at paulblackthorne.com

Paul Blackthorne's first acting experience was with the NYMT at the age of 11. The first production of 'The Leaving of Liverpool' took place at Abingdon School, before moving onto the EDINBURGH FESTIVAL, and London's West End. (Tom Hollander, Toby Jones and John Arney headed the cast).

A few years later he was back with the NYMT at the Bergen Festival in a production of 'The Ragged Child'.

After numerous commercials in the mid 90's (most notably the Virgin Atlantic GRIM REAPER commercial), he was back on stage at The Nottingham Playhouse in a production of Tennessee Williams' play SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER.

Soon after this came parts in Peak Practice, Jonathan Creek, and as the pill popping surgeon Guy Morton in Holby city.

Paul then played Romeo in Mathew Parkhill's short film ROMEO THINKS AGAIN, and then the messed up Dan in Simon Rumley's THE TRUTH GAME.

Around this time he had his first photographic exhibition in London: 'Fish heads and other things', raising money for GREENPEACE.

Paul then played Captain Russell in the Oscar nominated film LAGAAN directed by ASHUTOSH GOWARIKER, and starring and produced by AAMIR KHAN.

In 2001 Paul had another photographic exhibition - Bollywood Backpack. These pictures were taken whilst shooting Lagaan, and his travels around India thereafter. Money raised from this exhibition went to the BRITISH RED CROSS to help toward their extensive relief efforts of the GUJARAT EARTHQUAKE. (The area in which the shooting of Lagaan had taken place the year before)

In 2002 Paul was cast as as Dr Matt Slingerland in the John Wells show PRESIDIO MED.

Following that he played Mr Shakespeare in THE BLANK THEATER COMPANY'S production of 'Women are the weaker sex'.

Paul then played Dr Jeremy Lawson in ER, Henry Stoller (and son) in MEDIUM, and biological terrorist Stephen Saunders in season 3 of 24.

Independent film credits around this time include FOUR CORNERS OF SUBURBIA and SPECIAL.

Then came MONK, DEADWOOD and THE DRESDEN FILES.

Paul played Shane Healy for two seasons alongside Brooke Shields in the NBC show LIPSTICK JUNGLE.

He appeared in the Robert Zemeckis film A CHRISTMAS CAROL and The Gold Lunch, a short story written by Robert Carlson, adapted for screen by Sally Robinson and directed by Joanna Kerns.

He then featured in the documentary film THE MISSING PEACE in which he experienced an audience with HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA.

Paul then went about producing and directing his own documentary American Crossroads A journey in to America after the economic collapse and the election of President Obama.

After shooting the film Paul exhibited photos from his trip to India at TIBET HOUSE in New York, entitled DELHI TO MANHATTAN The sale of photos and an auction hosted by Brian Cox helped raise money for the TIBETAN CHILDREN VILLAGES of India.

Following this, post production began on AMERICAN CROSSROADS. During this time Paul has appeared in...

BURN NOTICE
LEVERAGE
CSI MIAMI
THE GATES
WHITE COLLAR

....and now he's in a new TV series, ABC's The River. It is about the crew of a state-of-the-art research vessel on a quest to find a missing TV explorer in the Amazon. It is being filmed on location in Puerto Rico.

P.S. NYMT is National Youth Music Theatre located in London, UK