Ian Champion

Ian Champion (born 1968 in Portsmouth) is an English film, theatre, television and voice actor who has appeared in television movies and soap operas such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Brookside.

Biography

Raised initially in Portsmouth while his father was in the Navy, Ian's family relocated to Sheffield in 1976. He still considers this very much his home.

Ian toured with the Sheffield Youth Theatre as a teenager under the guidance of director Meg Jepson (playing among others Romeo, Shylock and Odysseus), which honed his appreciation of classical theatre, particularly Shakespeare.

He went on to study at East 15 Acting School from 1989–92, when the school was still run by its founder Margaret Walker and her husband Artistic Director Wilf Walker. East 15 was one of the foremost Stanislavski "Method" schools and Ian has always maintained that the urban myth rumours about it were actually less interesting than the true stories. He was one of only three students in the school's history to have undertaken two of the infamous Method-immersive War Projects at East 15's Sheriff Hutton base, in both his first and second year.

After East 15, Ian toured briefly in children's theatre and in 1993 was at the Edinburgh Festival in Much Ado About Nothing with Patrick Baladi and James D'Arcy.

After adding screen training with Sean Cotter at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London, Champion began working in television. He began as devilish Piers Brunswick, an old flame of Anna Brecon's Lady Tara in Emmerdale (the first of four roles in the show between 1997 to the present), and over the years has notched up a range of credits including Brookside, Heartbeat, Hollyoaks, Cold Feet (a tiny role but gave him the very last line ever recorded on the show) and At Home with the Braithwaites.

In 2000, Ian was cast as two generations of the evil Earl of Shrewsbury in the long-running film still accompanying Alton Towers' Hex thrill-ride, in which he plays both the grandfather and his mad-scientist grandson attempting to free themselves of a fatal family curse.

In 2005 Ian played the TV Reporter in Granada's highly acclaimed TV movie See No Evil: The Hunt For the Moors Murderers, filmed on many of the original locations.

Since then, Ian's TV credits have also featured Coronation Street (as a bank manager mistakenly threatened by Kirk), roles in Sorted, Sinchronicity, The Royal, Survivors and in Five Days 2 as a consultant breaking the news to Anne Reid and Bernard Hill of her vascular dementia.

Champion is probably best known so far for some of his TV commercial work, most notably as the Salesman in the Sealy Beds commercials, three of which he has appeared in since 2006. One in which he is seen manically guzzling coffee and slapping himself to stay awake is well-remembered. He has also appeared in four other major brand TV adverts to date including Vodafone and most recently in September 2010 worked with Manchester City's Carlos Tevez in a TV commercial for Pepsi to be screened in Argentina, where Ian plays a suave awards-show presenter welcoming the football star on-stage for some Spanish banter with Eber Ludueno. The advert is also a showcase for Champion's talent for language assimilation, as he was required to speak several lines of hastily-learned Spanish to camera without a script.

Champion is semi-fluent in Italian, as well as still retaining some French and German.

He is also a keen lover of musical theatre. Among his "Life List" of desired theatre roles, he has long harboured a wish to play Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar and to work with Stephen Sondheim. In mainstream theatre, his cherished future parts include Lieutenant Greenwald in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Salieri in Amadeus and farcical comedy.

In 2007 he published his first book Acting On Purpose for students and professionals. His firm convictions about the discipline needed and his first-hand experience in the industry informed the book's no-nonsense style and have earned it gratifying feedback from industry peers, especially from those who have sought honest guidance and renewed inspiration.

As a voice artist of exceptional accent and character range Champion now has a very lucrative sideline, building a long list of work for blue-chip corporate clients (including Dolby, HSBC and Yell.Com) as well as commercials, virals, documentary and video game voices for the Wii and Xbox, which has allowed him to play various international soldiers.

In November 2010 Champion made his BBC Radio 4 debut in a lead role in the play Eclipse as Maurice.

External links

• Ian Champion at IMDb