Discover the Best Books Written by Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, and writer. He first became prominent in the 1980s as one-half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson, and Robbie Coltrane and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind.

Fry's film acting roles include playing his idol Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde (1997), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor; Inspector Thompson in Robert Altman's murder mystery Gosford Park (2001); and Mr. Johnson in Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship (2016).

He has also made appearances in the films Chariots of Fire (1981), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), V for Vendetta (2005), and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). In addition, he portrays the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (2010), its 2016 sequel, and the Master of Lake-town in the film series adaptation of The Hobbit. From 2001 to 2017, he hosted the British Academy Film Awards 12 times.

His television roles include Lord Melchett in the BBC television comedy series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom and Absolute Power, as well as recurring guest roles as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the American crime series Bones and Arthur Garrison MP on the Channel 4 period drama It's a Sin.

He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America. He was the longtime host of the BBC television quiz show QI, with his tenure lasting from 2003 to 2016, during which he was nominated for six British Academy Television Awards. He frequently appears on other panel games, such as the radio programs Just a Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Fry is also known for his work in theatre. In 1984 he adapted Me and My Girl for the West End, which ran for eight years and received two Laurence Olivier Awards. After it transferred to Broadway, he received a Tony Award nomination. In 2012 he played Malvolio in the Twelfth Night at Shakespeare's Globe. The production was then taken to the West End before transferring to Broadway, where he received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.

Fry is also a prolific writer, contributing to newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and three autobiographies: Moab Is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles, and More Fool Me. He is also known for his voice-over work; he read all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the UK audiobook recordings, narrated Paddington Bear audiobooks, narrated the video game series LittleBigPlanet and Birds of Steel, narrated an animated series of explanations of the laws of cricket and narrated a series of animations about humanism for Humanists UK.