Darren Boyd

Darren John Boyd (born 30 January 1971) is an English actor, best-known for starring in Sky 1's sitcom Spy, for which he won a BAFTA Award for Best Comedy Performance, and for playing the roles of John Cleese in Holy Flying Circus and DC Simon Waterhouse in ITV crime drama Case Sensitive. He is a classically trained singer, and played a jazz musician in the American sitcom Watching Ellie. --- Boyd is an only child. He began acting at age 17 in amateur theatre and performed in local productions from 1989 to 1995. Boyd moved to London in his mid-20s, upon being cast in the West End's Les Miserables. It was during this time he met fellow cast member Chris Langham who then wrote him into his new BBC comedy sitcom. Boyd co-starred in the BBC comedy sitcom Kiss Me Kate (1998), which ran for three years. This led to starring roles in British comedies such as Hippies (1999) and Smack the Pony (1999). In 2001, he collaborated with Victoria Pile on new comedy Los Dos Bros, a quirky, off-beat sitcom exploring physical comedy and the relationship between Boyd and Cavan Clerkin as the titular (half-)brothers. Boyd was co-creator and co-writer. During this time Boyd was cast in the American NBC sitcom,Watching Ellie, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Boyd returned to the UK in 2005 and took on notable comedy characters including Dr. Jake Leaf in the second series of Green Wing (2006), and as Jonathan in Steve Coogan's Saxondale. In 2009, he appeared in the two-part adaptation of May Contain Nuts, based on John O'Farrell's best-selling novel, Personal Affairs for BBC3 and Royal Wedding (2010), which follows the 1981 Royal Wedding through the perspective of events held in a small Welsh mining village, written by BAFTA winner Abi Morgan and starring Jodie Whittaker. --- Feature films in which Boyd has appeared include High Heels and Low Lifes (2002), Imagine Me & You (2005), Magicians (2007), Chris Morris' Four Lions (2010), The World's End (2013), and Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013). --- Boyd currently lives in London with his wife, nutritional therapist Amanda Ashy-Boyd, whom he met in Los Angeles. The couple has one child.