Whishaw was born on 14 October 1980 in Clifton, Bedfordshire, and was brought up there and in neighbouring Langford. He is the son of Linda (née Hope), who works in cosmetics, and Jose Whishaw who works in sports with young people.[3] He has a fraternal twin, James.
His mother is of English ancestry, while his father is of French, German and Russian descent.[4] The family's original surname was not Whishaw but Stellmacher, a German occupational name for a wheelwright.[4][5] Whishaw's paternal grandfather, born Jean Vladimir Stellmacher and living in Kassel, Germany[6] changed his name to John Victor Whishaw after World War II during which he served as a British spy in the German army. He was born in Istanbul in 1922 to a Russian mother and German father.[5]
Whishaw was involved in many productions with Big Spirit Youth Theatre, including If This Is a Man (also performed as The Drowned & The Saved), a piece devised by the company based on the book of the same name by Primo Levi, a chemist, writer and survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp.[8] It was adapted as a physical theatre piece by the group and taken to the 1995 Edinburgh Festival, where it garnered five-star reviews and great critical acclaim.[9]
As the lead in Trevor Nunn's 2004 production of Hamlet at the Old Vic, Whishaw received highly favourable reviews, was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor and received third prize at the Ian Charleson Awards. The role was shared with Al Weaver in an unusual arrangement. Whishaw played all nights except for Mondays and matinées. Nunn is reported to have made this arrangement due to the youth of the two actors playing the lead, to relieve some of the pressure on each.
His film and television credits include Layer Cake and Chris Morris's 2005 sitcom Nathan Barley, in which he played a character called Pingu. He was named "Most Promising Newcomer" at the 2001 British Independent Film Awards for My Brother Tom. In 2005 he was nominated as best actor in four award programs for his portrayal of Hamlet. He also played Keith Richards in the Brian Jones biopic Stoned. In the spring of 2005, Whishaw received much attention for his role as a drug dealer in the world premiere of Philip Ridley's controversial stage play Mercury Fur.[10]
In Perfume, Whishaw played Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a perfume maker whose craft turns deadly. The film was released in Germany in September 2006 and in America in December 2006. In the same year, Whishaw worked on Paweł Pawlikowski's abandoned The Restraint of Beasts.[11] Whishaw appeared as one of the Bob Dylan reincarnations in I'm Not There in 2007, in the BBC's Criminal Justice in 2008, in a new adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, and in a stage adaptation of The Idiot at the National Theatre called ...some trace of her.[12]
In 2012 Whishaw appeared as Richard II in the television film Richard II, a part of the BBC Two series The Hollow Crown. He received the British Academy Television Award for Leading Actor.[16] Also in 2012, he appeared as part of the ensemble cast of the science-fiction drama film Cloud Atlas, adapted from the novel of the same name.
Whishaw appeared in the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, in the role of Q.[17] He portrayed a younger Q than in previous films; Peter Burton and Desmond Llewelyn both received the role when they were in their forties, while Llewelyn and John Cleese played the role into their eighties and sixties, respectively. In addition, he was teamed a fourth time with Daniel Craig after they starred in the films The Trench, Enduring Love and Layer Cake.
Whishaw reprised his role of Q in No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, which released worldwide on 30 September 2021.[27] As of 2022, Whishaw stars in the BBC and AMC medical drama This Is Going to Hurt, an adaptation of comedian Adam Kay's memoir recalling his time as a junior NHS doctor in 2006. Whishaw is also credited as an executive producer.[28] Whishaw appeared in Sarah Polley's Women Talking, the film adaptation of Miriam Toews' novel of the same name, for which he was nominated for several acting awards for his performance.[29] In 2023, he appeared in Passages for which he received a nomination for Best Supporting Performance at the 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards.[30]
For several years, Whishaw refused to answer questions about his personal life, saying: "For me, it's important to keep a level of anonymity. As an actor, your job is to persuade people that you're someone else. So if you're constantly telling people about yourself, I think you're shooting yourself in the foot."[34] In 2011, he told Out magazine: "As an actor you have total rights to privacy and mystery, whatever your sexuality, whatever you do. I don't see why that has to be something you discuss openly because you do something in the public eye. I have no understanding of why we turn actors into celebrities."[35]
In August 2012, Whishaw entered into a civil partnership with Australian composer Mark Bradshaw, whom he had met in 2009.[36] In 2014, he publicly discussed his coming out, saying that it was a tense experience for him but "everyone was surprisingly lovely".[37] He split from Mark Bradshaw in 2022.[38]
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