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Actor

1947-10-27 · Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, UK · Male

41 series in the catalog

James Ronald Gordon Copeland (born 1947), known professionally as James Cosmo, is a Scottish actor. Known for his character work, he has played supporting roles in films such as Highlander (1986), Braveheart (1995), Trainspotting (1996), Troy (2004), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Ben-Hur (2016), and Wonder Woman (2017). On television, he appeared as Father Kellan Ashby on the third season of Sons of Anarchy (2010), Jeor Mormont on HBO's Game of Thrones (2011–2013), Farder Coram in the BBC series His Dark Materials (2019), Luka Gocharov on the third season of Amazon Prime's Jack Ryan (2022) and Fraser Warren on the first season of Nightsleeper. Cosmo appeared as a contestant on the nineteenth series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2017, finishing in fourth place.

Early life

Cosmo is the son of actor James Copeland and Helen Goodlet Findlay. He attended Hartfield Primary School in Dumbarton. Through his father, young James played cricket on Hampstead Heath with Sean Connery while his father was in the pub with Peter O'Toole. He has a sister. When he was 11, he moved back to Glasgow and later he worked for a time at Arnott Young shipbreakers in Dalmuir.

Career

At the start of his career he adopted Cosmo, the middle name of his mother Helen, as his stage surname. Cosmo is best known for his film roles as Angus MacLeod in Highlander, Campbell in Braveheart and as Father Christmas in the adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Over the years he has also had roles in other films such as Trainspotting, The Last Legion and 2081. He appeared in Troy with future Game of Thrones cast members Sean Bean and Julian Glover. He also appeared in UFO as SHADO operative Lieutenant Anderson, in Take the High Road as Alex Geddes from 1982 until 1983 and in 1984 played Jock McLeish in the Minder episode Senior Citizen Caine. He appeared as Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Drysdale in the seventh series of Soldier Soldier.

From 2011–2013, Cosmo portrayed Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and father of Jorah Mormont (played by Iain Glen), in the HBO series Game of Thrones. He was involved in the filming of the thriller Breakdown in which he appeared alongside Craig Fairbrass, Bruce Payne, Emmett Scanlan, Olivia Grant and Tamer Hassan. He played the antagonist in the Indian film, Jagame Thandhiram, which released in 2021. He played a Russian intelligence officer named Luka Gocharov in season 3 of the Amazon show Jack Ryan.

He is a patron of the charity Chance for Childhood.