Joe Gilgun

Early life

Gilgun was born in Chorley, Lancashire, to mother Judith and father Andrew. He has two younger sisters: Jennie and Rosie. He attended Rivington VA Primary School and Southlands High School. He also trained at the Laine Johnson Theatre School and the Oldham Theatre Workshop. He has both dyslexia and ADHD, which he describes as the "biggest pain of [his] life" and in interviews has openly discussed depression and anxiety. He started drama workshops at the age of eight, following advice from an educational psychologist, and was described as having "exceptional talent". When he was 10, he got his first TV acting role in Coronation Street. He stayed until he was 13. Gilgun studied art at Runshaw College. He started a degree in fashion design, but found it too academic. He was a plasterer, until returning to acting full-time with Emmerdale.

Career

As a child actor, Gilgun played little tearaway Jamie Armstrong in Coronation Street between 1994 and 1997. He left the soap when the actress playing his on-screen mother left the show. Gilgun revisited the set in an ITV special The Kids from Coronation Street in 2004. In 1998, when he was 14 years old, he presented a feature on Wish You Were Here...? where he visited Phantasialand, Germany's largest theme park.

Gilgun took a break in his teens, acting part-time in local and national stage productions including the Manchester-based Hanky Park the Musical at the Lowry. He played Charlie Millwall in a critically acclaimed tour of the stage play Borstal Boy, which ended at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Gilgun found the break from acting difficult, telling The Guardian in December 2011 that "[I] went off the fucking rails" and became confused about what to do with his life. He ended up working as a plasterer.

He returned to acting full-time in 2006, when he won the roles of both trouble-prone Eli Dingle in long-running soap opera Emmerdale and kind-hearted skinhead Woody in This Is England. His debut as a film actor, This Is England was released in the UK on 27 April 2007 and subsequently won several awards including a BAFTA for Best British Film in 2008.

In 2007, Gilgun starred alongside welterweight boxing champion Michael Jennings in a locally produced feature-length documentary entitled Chorley: Where People Go to Fight. All proceeds went to Derian House Children's Hospice, with Joseph helping to present the cheque. Additionally, he appeared in a Dingle-centred episode of Ghosthunting with... hosted by Yvette Fielding.

Gilgun was granted time off from Emmerdale to shoot the 2009 British crime thriller Harry Brown, where he played drug dealer Kenny Soames. Gilgun announced he would quit Emmerdale on 10 November 2009, feeling the time was right to move on. His last appearance was on 30 April 2010. An Emmerdale representative said the programme had not ruled out a future return for the character. Gilgun later indicated he currently had no such plans. In 2010, it was reported that he had been offered a role in the superhero film Kick-Ass starring Nicolas Cage, but had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts with Emmerdale.

Gilgun reprised the character of Woody for three Channel 4 TV spin-off series of This Is England, called This Is England '86. and This is England '88 and This is England '90, which aired in September 2010, December 2011 and 2015 respectively. In 2010, This is England writer/director Shane Meadows referred Gilgun to star in longtime collaborator Paul Fraser's music video for the song "Dead American Writers" by Tired Pony.

On 9 May 2011, it was announced that Gilgun had been cast as newcomer Rudy in the third series of Misfits. The character Rudy can manifest a clone of himself that roughly represents his conscience. He first appeared in the first episode of the third series in late October 2011. He replaced as lead the character of Nathan following the departure of Robert Sheehan. An online short called Vegas Baby covered Nathan's exit and Rudy's arrival. Gilgun said that replacing Sheehan had "been frightening... You'd think that it'd be a total ballache, what with being new and stuff and Rob doing such a good job".

In the following years, Gilgun appeared in the 2012 US sci-fi film Lockout, co-written and produced by Luc Besson and starring Guy Pearce, the 2013 BBC series Ripper Street as a Fagin-type character, Carmichael, as well as starring in the final two series of Misfits. He appears in the music video for "Tiny Legs" by Then Thickens, released in 2014. Having been friends with a few members of the band from growing up around Chorley, Joe agreed to star in the video. It involved him having makeup, flour and eggs applied to his face amongst other things and took several, messy takes to get right.

In 2015, Gilgun played Ellic in Breck Eisner's The Last Witch Hunter alongside Michael Caine, Vin Diesel and Elijah Wood.

In March 2015 Gilgun earned the role of drug-addict vampire Cassidy, one of the main characters in the AMC series Preacher. Speaking of the casting of Gilgun, Preacher executive producer Seth Rogen said: “It’s one of those things that happens only a few times throughout your career, where you just go ‘Oh, it’s you. You’re the character that is written on the page'... You could tell Joe’s lived like 100 lifetimes, and he’s probably done some shit you do not want to hear about, but at the same time, he’s one of the most fun, loving people you’ll ever be around. And it was exactly what the character needed to be.”

Personal life

Gilgun has developed a close relationship with his co-stars from the This Is England stories, referring to them in interviews as "the gang". Gilgun also has a tattoo of the name 'Lol' across his hand dedicated to the character closest to him in This Is England.