Craig Gallivan

Craig Gallivan was born on 9 February 1984 in Swansea, South Wales, where he spent his early years doing what all young Welshmen do...playing rugby. He developed into a very skilful player and at the age of 12 was selected to play for his home City of Swansea and then subsequently, much to the pride of his Mam and Dad, went on to represent West Wales. Later that year though, something would happen that would put Craig on a completely different path. Craig's younger sister, Hayley, had always attended drama, dance and singing lessons and was part of a small group who were travelling to London and try their luck auditioning for Cameron Macintosh's musical 'Oliver' at the London Palladium. Somewhat reluctantly, Craig was coerced into tagging along to have a go for himself. Several recalls later, Craig was offered a part in the Sam Mendes production and in a matter of weeks was performing on the prestigious West End stage in front of 2000 people alongside Barry Humphries and Jim Dale. When the production was finally over Craig was well and truly hooked and decided to pursue a career in acting. After studying performing arts at Gorseinon College in Swansea, at the age of 18 Craig was offered a place at world renowned drama school RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) where he trained for 3 years. By this time Craig had already made a number of stage and TV appearances including the BAFTA award winning BBC drama 'Care' (2000). On graduating from RADA Craig was launched into millions of UK homes playing Callum Watson in ITV's hit TV show 'Footballers Wives' (2006). The show has since been shown internationally including throughout America via BBC Worldwide. Craig has gone on to star in numerous theatrical, TV and film productions including leading roles for The Royal Shakespeare Company (2008) and National Theatre (2008) in London, BBC's Dr Who spin-off 'Torchwood' (2009) and as Tony Elliot in the multi Olivier and Tony award winning 'Billy Elliot' (2010), directed by Stephen Daldry, for which he was nominated Best Supporting Actor. More recently Craig has been starring as Luke Morris in the hit SKY1 comedy-drama 'Stella', created by Ruth Jones. The show ran for 5 seasons winning numerous awards and has been hailed as SKY1's most watched show ever and seen the second-biggest UK comedy launch in multichannel history with its debut in 2012.