Stephen Merchant

STEPHEN MERCHANT is an Emmy, BAFTA and Golden Globe winning actor, comedian, writer, director and producer and one of the most versatile talents in TV and film.

Merchant is currently in production on The Offenders (working title), a new drama-comedy series he has co-created for BBC One/Amazon Studios. As well as writing and directing, he co-stars alongside screen legend Christopher Walken.

Merchant co-starred in the Oscar-winning war satire Jojo Rabbit, alongside Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson, and portrays the infamous serial killer Stephen Port in forthcoming BBC drama Four Lives.

Merchant wrote and directed MGM/Film 4’s Fighting With My Family, a critically lauded movie he co-produced with Dwayne Johnson, based on the true story of WWE Superstar Paige and her family of professional wrestlers. He also co-starred in BBC One Christmas comedy film Click & Collect, alongside Asim Chaudhry, and crime thriller The Girl in the Spider’s Web, opposite Claire Foy.

In 2017 Merchant was widely praised for his role as the mutant “Caliban” in the international blockbuster movie Logan, alongside Hugh Jackman as “Wolverine”. Prior to that he was star, co-creator, co-writer and director of HBO’s Hello Ladies, a sitcom based on his live stand-up show of the same name. The series ended with a feature-length HBO special and received two nominations at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards.

Merchant has also made cameo appearances (in roles written specially for him) in hit US sitcoms The Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, The Good Place and The Simpsons.

Merchant first shot to prominence as co-creator (alongside Ricky Gervais) of BBC’s The Office and Extras, both of which were critically acclaimed, earning multiple comedy series awards, including three BAFTA Awards, two British Comedy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Peabody Award. Additionally, Merchant received a British Comedy Award for “Best TV Comedy Actor” for his role in Extras and, in 2004, accepted their “Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award” alongside Gervais. 

Merchant also served as an executive producer on the long-running US adaptation of The Office, which received five Primetime Emmy Awards and 42 nominations during its run on NBC.

He and Gervais appeared alongside Karl Pilkington in An Idiot Abroad, a highly successful live-action travelogue series which Merchant also co-produced. Merchant and Gervais both appeared in Life’s Too Short, a pseudo-documentary on BBC/HBO which they jointly wrote and directed, and in 2010, the two directed their first feature film, a 1970s-set comedy-drama titled Cemetery Junction. Merchant’s additional film credits and cameos include Hot Fuzz, Table 19, I Give It A Year, Hall Pass and Tooth Fairy. 

Merchant serves as executive producer on Paramount Network’s Emmy-nominated hit series Lip Sync Battle and Adult Swim’s surreal comedy Dream Corp, LLC.

Merchant began his career as a stand-up comedian in 1997 in the UK and shortly thereafter became co-host of XFM London’s The Ricky Gervais Show. In 2005, the program was reformatted as a weekly podcast that went on to be consistently ranked as number one in the world and was certified as the most downloaded podcast of all time by the Guinness Book of World Records. The program was later adapted into an animated version of the same name for HBO and Channel 4. 

Aside from his on-screen work, Merchant has also toured the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand with his stand-up show, Stephen Merchant Live: Hello Ladies.

He currently splits his time between Los Angeles and London.