With lean hangdog looks that make him a natural for the criminals and fringe dwellers he usually plays, Tim Roth has the uncanny and incredibly effective ability to make sleaze look sexy, or at least raggedly photogenic. Since his debut in the made-for-TV Made in Britain at the age of 18, Tim Roth has joined fellow Briton Gary Oldman as one of the leading interpreters of society’s underbelly. His ability has been particularly appreciated by director Quentin Tarantino, who helped to propel Roth to international recognition with prominent roles in Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction in the early ’90s. Since then, Tim Roth has continued to portray a variety of gritty characters, occasionally making room for the odd sympathetic or lighthearted role.
Tim Roth Born in London on May 14, 1961, to a journalist father and landscape painter mother, Roth initially wanted to become a sculptor. After an education at London’s Camberwell School of Art, he decided to try his hand at acting, first appearing in a production of Jean Genet’s The Screens. Roth’s television debut in the 1981 film Made in Britain garnered critical raves for the actor, who portrayed a poverty-stricken juvenile delinquent with profanity-spewing gusto. The same year, he appeared with Gary Oldman in Mike Leigh’s Meantime, a made-for-TV movie that was eventually released theatrically, but Roth’s bona fide screen debut didn’t come until 1984, when Tim Roth played an apprentice hitman in Stephen Frears’ The Hit. Co-starring Terence Stamp and John Hurt, the film did moderately well and earned Roth an Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Thanks to such positive notices, the young actor continued to find work throughout the rest of the decade, making appearances in a variety of films, including former Kinks frontman Ray Davies’ 1985 musical Return to Waterloo.