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Ian Kelly is a writer and actor whose career encompasses film, theatre, and television, with performances ranging from Broadway to London's West End and the National Theatre, and roles in productions from Merchant Ivory films to Harry Potter and notable modern Russian cinema. He is also a bestselling historical biographer and an award-winning playwright and screenwriter for the West End.
He currently collaborates with Julian Fellowes (The Rothschilds) and develops television and film projects across France, the UK, and the USA. His debut full-length play, Mr Foote's Other Leg, adapted from his own book, shattered box office records at Hampstead Theatre before transferring directly to the West End, directed by Sir Richard Eyre and starring Sir Simon Russell Beale.
Born to British parents, Kelly was raised in Philadelphia, the West Country, and North West England. He graduated from Cambridge University and UCLA’s film school on scholarships before pursuing dual careers in acting and writing.
His film credits include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 (as Hermione’s father), The King’s Man, Creation, The Children Act, In Love and War, Howards End, and Russian films Admiral Kolchak and Voina (War), for which he received a Best Actor nomination at the Montreal Film Festival.
Television appearances include Downton Abbey, Sensitive Skin, The Moth, Silent Witness, Hetty Wainthropp, Just William, Beau Brummell, Underworld, Time Trumpet, and Drop the Dead Donkey.
His theatre work spans Broadway, the West End, and the National Theatre, with credits such as The Pitmen Painters (original cast), Mr Foote's Other Leg, and A Busy Day. Off-Broadway credits include Cooking for Kings and Beau Brummell. Other stage roles include Arcadia (Manchester; nominated Best Actor), Relative Values, Pygmalion, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Arsenic and Old Lace, Single Spies, Macbeth, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, The Changeling, and Hippolytus.
As an author, Kelly has written biographies of Beau Brummell, Casanova, Antonin Carême, Samuel Foote, and the official biography of Vivienne Westwood (co-written with Dame Vivienne). His plays include Mr Foote's Other Leg (Hampstead and West End), Cooking for Kings (Off-Broadway), and Playing for Stalin, commissioned for the Salzburg Festival. He wrote the scenario for the Kenneth Tindall ballet Casanova, based on his Casanova biography, which received the Outstanding Achievement in Dance Award in 2017 at Sadler’s Wells (BroadwayWorld). Currently, he is co-writing a play with Kit de Waal for Birmingham Rep about Frank Barber, Britain’s first Black schoolteacher. His first radio play, The Painted Hall, aired in 2022 starring Jane Asher and Hugh Bonneville.
As a screenwriter, his current projects include The Rothschilds for MGMtv, co-written with Julian Fellowes; Cooking for Kings (based on the Carême biography) for l’Insense Films and Endemol Shine Paris; Messiah for SDG Productions; episode 2 of Arabia for MBC Dubai; The Serpent and the Moon, co-written with Julian Fellowes; Burns, originally for Lionsgate UK; Fortunes for Lionsgate TV; Northcliffe for Quidem Films; Alexandre Dumas, co-written with Candace Allen; and an untitled 18th-century comedy series for Mercury/Kudos.
