Mark Bonnar

Mark Bonnar’s Journey from Edinburgh’s Libraries to the Screen

Long before any credits rolled, Mark Bonnar was filing books and processing planning applications for Edinburgh City Council. Born on 19 November 1968 in the Scottish capital, he had won a school prize for acting at twelve, only to shelve the ambition on the advice of a career counsellor. A decade passed. Friends persuaded him onto the stage at Leith Theatre, and the pull proved impossible to resist. He entered the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (then the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama), graduating in 1996, and spent the following years building a formidable reputation on the Scottish and national stage – taking on roles at the National Theatre, the Donmar Warehouse, and the Old Vic along the way.

Television Breakthrough: Shetland, Line of Duty, and Catastrophe

A deliberate decision after the birth of his daughter pushed Bonnar toward television. Shetland, where he played counter-terrorism officer Duncan Hunter, was his first regular small-screen role after a decade primarily on stage. The real turning point arrived with Line of Duty Series 2, in which he portrayed DCC Mike Dryden – a corrupt senior officer caught in a web of coercion and cover-up alongside Keeley Hawes. The series dominated front pages and became a cultural event, and Bonnar’s performance sat at its dark centre. Channel 4’s Catastrophe offered a counterpoint: sharp, warm comedy that showed a range well beyond crime drama. Awards followed – a BAFTA Scotland win for Best Actor in Television for his work in Unforgotten in 2017, and a Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actor in 2018.

Guilt, Dept. Q, and the Later Career

The BBC Scotland thriller Guilt gave Bonnar his most sustained lead role of the decade, running from 2019 to 2023 as Max McCall, a morally compromised Edinburgh lawyer. The show reunited him with Jamie Sives, a schoolmate from Leith Academy. In 2025, the pair worked together again on Netflix’s Dept. Q, where Bonnar played Lord Advocate Stephen Burns. That same year, he was confirmed for the second series of BBC detective drama Ludwig, set to play newspaper editor Gareth Fisher. Recent credits also include Lockerbie: A Search for Truth and the 2026 production Marble Hall Murders.

Voice Work: Blackbeard, Battlefield, and the Eleven

Bonnar’s voice credits are anchored by two major game roles. He provided both performance capture and voice for Edward “Blackbeard” Thatch in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag in 2013, delivering the character in a West Country/Bristol accent – a job he initially believed was for an animated series. He reprised the Assassin’s Creed universe in Valhalla (2020), voicing King Ceolwulf II of Mercia. In 2016, he returned to high-profile game work as Townsend in Battlefield 1. Away from games, his most extensive audio voice work sits within Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who universe: his portrayal of the Eleven – a rogue Time Lord whose previous incarnations continue to argue inside his mind simultaneously – across the Doom Coalition and Ravenous series became one of Big Finish’s most celebrated original villain creations. Bonnar also voiced Twigs and Box in the CBeebies animated series Tree Fu Tom, taking over the Twigs role from David Tennant.