James Murray (English actor)

Early life

Murray was born in Manchester. His great-grandfather, Richard Hollins Murray, invented the reflecting lens in 1927.

Career

Murray found initial fame as in ITV's soap opera Coronation Street (1998) as Sandy Hunter. He then starred in a series of both film and television pieces, including the comedy series Roger-Roger (1999), legal drama series North Square (2000), mini series Other People's Children (2000) and Sons & Lovers (2003), a Granada production of The Sittaford Mystery (2006) as Charles Burnaby, a film of the Thomas Hardy story Under the Greenwood Tree (2005) as Dick Dewy, plus earlier films Nailing Vienna (2002) as Peter, All the King's Men (1999) as Pvt Will Needham, and Phoenix Blue (2001) as Rick. He also found more permanent roles in Channel 4's 20 Things to Do Before You're 30 (2003) playing Glen and BBC One's season four of Cutting It (2005) as Liam Carney.

Murray starred in the ITV science fiction series Primeval as Stephen Hart, Nick Cutter's lab technician, in both series one (2007) and series two (2008).

Murray had the leading role of the father, Frank Davis, in It's Alive (2008) a remake of the '70s horror classic by Larry Cohen.

James had a role in Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, a comic fantasy series for Comedy Central and BBC Two, which began airing in April 2009. His character is Ralph Longshaft.

According to United Agents James appeared on the CBS series CHAOS in Vancouver from November 2010 to April 2011. His character was called Billy Collins (not Michael Dorset as listed at their website).

In 2012 James appeared in the popular BBC series New Tricks. The series nine, episode seven aired 8 October in the UK - titled "Dead Poets". James character was Luke Oswald.

James appeared in the second series of Death in Paradise as the character Ronnie Stuart in ep:6 - A Dash of Sunshine - Series 2 - broadcast February 2013 and filmed in Guadeloupe.

He also filmed the first episode of "Midsomer Murders" season 16 for airing over the Christmas 2013 season - "A Christmas Haunting". His character was a traumatized soldier called Ollie Tabori.

James was cast as Niles Pottinger, the new Mayor of Defiance. The second season of the hit Syfy series Defiance started production in August, 2013 in Toronto and continued until December 2013. Series 2 aired 19th June 2014. James appeared in one episode (ep.3 Dead Air) of the third series which aired 27 June 2015.

The Channel 4 Production of Cucumber and Banana in January through to March 2015 features James' (as Daniel) brilliant work in several episodes (1-6).

He appeared as a regular in the fifth series of Suspects as DCI Daniel Drummond, which aired 3 to 31 August 2016 (all six episodes).

James starred as the father, Edward, in the three part ITV supernatural series HIM from 19th Oct to 2nd Nov 2016.

James appears in S1 Ep5: Temptation of the Netflix series Medici: Masters of Florence as Doge Foscari - first aired in November in Italy, and in December in the US, UK, Canada, India, Ireland.

Personal life

Murray married his Cutting It co-star Sarah Parish in Hampshire on 15 December 2007, following a two-year romance. On 18 January 2008, it was announced that Sarah was pregnant with their first child. Their daughter was born 5 weeks premature in May 2008 and died in January 2009 aged 8 months due to a congenital heart defect. In her honour, Parish and Murray are raising funds for the Children's Intensive Care unit at Southampton General Hospital where she was cared for. In October 2009, it was announced that Sarah was expecting another child, to be born in the new year. Their daughter Nell was born 21 November 2009.