David John Bradley (born 17 April 1942 in York, England) is an English actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films and Walder Frey in the HBO series Game of Thrones. Bradley is also an established stage actor with a career that includes a Laurence Olivier Award for his role in a production of King Lear. Other acting credits include The BBC series Our Friends in the North, the ITV series Broadchurch, the FX series The Strain, and the films Hot Fuzz and The World's End. In 2013, he portrayed William Hartnell, the actor who portrayed the First Doctor, in the Doctor Who docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, and later returned in 2017 and 2022 to play the First Doctor on the show proper, making him the third actor to take on the role of that specific incarnation, following the deaths of Hartnell and Richard Hurndall (funnily enough, he'd also played an especially nasty villain of the week on the show before either of these). He's also portrayed the character in Big Finish Doctor Who.
He is part of Guillermo del Toro's Production Posse.
Film Roles
- Harry Potter as Argus Filch
- Hot Fuzz as Arthur Webley
- The Colour of Magic as Cohen the Barbarian
- Harry Brown as Leonard Attwell
- The World's End as Basil
- An Adventure in Space and Time as William Hartnell
- Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio as Geppetto (voice)
- Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget as Fowler (voice)
Television Roles
- Our Friends in the North as Eddie Wells
- The Tudors as Will Somers
- Blackpool as Hallworth
- The Sarah Jane Adventures as the Shansheeth in "Death of the Doctor"
- Game of Thrones as Walder Frey
- Doctor Who as Solomon in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", and the First Doctor in "The Doctor Falls" (cameo in cliffhanger ending), "Twice Upon a Time" and "The Power of the Doctor".
- Broadchurch as Jack Marshall
- The Strain as Professor Abraham Setrakian
- The Hollow Crown as the Gardener from Richard II
- Trollhunters as Merlin
Tropes:
- Cool Old Guy: Due to being in some of the great fantasy/sci-fi franchises, like Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who and others.
- Face of a Thug: His face can only be described as an Obviously Evil Grumpy Old Man incarnate, but David is a pleasant fellow who's very friendly to his fans.
- Grumpy Old Man: Almost invariably, when Bradley isn't playing a raging psychopath, he's playing one of these.
- Guttural Growler: David Bradley can make his voice very harsh, which is most noticeable in his role as Abraham Setrakian.
- Obviously Evil: His roles, not him! But admittedly Hollywood loves faces like his for evil/grumpy seniors.
- Playing Against Type:
- While still a famously irascible old chap, the First Doctor is still very firmly a hero with a strong sense of justice and about as far from the likes of Walder Frey and Argus Filch as one can get.
- And Jack Marshall is straight-up
The Woobie. - His brief appearance as Merlin in Trollhunters has him as even more of a classical hero. And though his expanded role in the following season shows the character having a darker side, he's still ultimately a hero.
- He voiced an elderly Finn in Adventure Time: Distant Lands.
- Typecasting: He often plays Evil Old Folks of sorts. Exceptions to this rule can be found in roles like Abraham Setrakian and William Hartnell. Also exploited in Broadchurch, where he plays a cranky old man with a dark secret who is nonetheless a lot more than he seems.
