Acting
Dec 31, 1974
Dublin, Ireland
Christopher Simpson
Acting
Biography
Christopher Crawford Gatsinzi Simpson (born 1975) is an Irish actor. He played Karim in the film adaptation of Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane. Simpson was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father is Irish and his mother was of Greek-Rwandan descent. His father met his mother in Rwanda whilst training to be a teacher. When Simpson was a child he visited Rwanda with his mother. His mother's first language was Kinyarwanda. Simpson lived in Dublin until he was six years old. After his parents divorced, he moved to London with his mother and his sister, Fiona, where he has lived ever since. When Simpson was at primary school, he began attending drama classes on Thursday evenings with an amateur dramatics club. Simpson has often been cast in South Asian roles, although his heritage is mixed European and African. In 2002, he played twins, Magid and Millat, in White Teeth. In 2003, he starred in Second Generation, and appeared in State of Play. In 2003, Simpson played a supporting role in Code 46.In 2004, he played the role of Hassan Sabbah in The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam. In 2005, he appeared in Chromophobia. In 2006, he played a supporting role in Mischief Night. In 2007, he played the lead role of Karim in the film adaptation of Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane, and a supporting role in Exitz. Simpson had one week to learn the part of Karim for Brick Lane. In 2008, Simpson was a British Independent Film Awards jury member. In 2006, Simpson played the role of Dionysus in Conall Morrison's The Bacchae of Baghdad (an updated version of Euripides's play The Bacchae) at the Abbey Theatre. In 2011, he played the role of Maz in John Donnelly's The Knowledge, and the role of Parvez in Steve Waters' Little Platoons, both at the Bush Theatre. In 2016, he played the role of Sebastian in Bryony Lavery's adaptation of Brideshead Revisited at the English Touring Theatre and UK National Tour.
Feature Films (15)
The grind of daily life as a Brick Lane Bangladessi as seen through the eyes of Nazneen (Chatterjee), who at 17 enters an arranged marriage with Chanu (Kaushik). Years later, living in east London with her family, she meets a young man Karim (Simpson).
Brick Lane
A hopeless waitress and a melancholy neon sign maker are on separate paths and struggle through the everyday alone. Their thoughts for each other collide with magnetic force, can fate under the guise of a cupid cowboy and a band of coffee bean ants connect the lost souls?
Ever Here I Be
Two young, strong-willed Scottish sisters, one a left-wing activist, the other a most-popular-girl-in-school type, take their late father's ashes to Cuba, the site of many family legends of his services to the Revolution. Arriving in Havana, the two women promptly lose the ashes and go through a series of misadventrues - both romantic and dangerous - to try to retrieve them. A colourful and wryly humourous tale of cross-cultural misunderstandings and lost illusions.
Day of the Flowers
Everyone has Halloween, but in Yorkshire, they have Mischief Night, where madness and mayhem rule. In the course of one night, the barriers that separate two families—one white, one Asian—come tumbling down in a blaze of crime, clubbing, love and fireworks—changing all their lives forever.
Mischief Night
Kamran is a 12 year old boy in the present day who discovers that his ancestor is the 11th Century Mathematician, Astronomer, Poet of Persia, Omar Khayyam. The story has been passed down in his family from one generation to another, and now it is his responsibility to keep the story alive for future generations. The film takes us from the modern day to the epic past where the relationship between Omar Khayyam, Hassan Sabbah (the original creator of the sect of Assassins) and their mutual love for a beautiful woman separate them from their eternal bond of friendship. Filmed almost entirely on location in Samarkand and Bukhara, Uzbekistan.
The Keeper: The Legend of Omar Khayyam
Television & Series (9)
An explosive two-part drama about love, family and identity - set around the tangled relationships of two Indian families with a deep-rooted, shared history.
Second Generation
The lives of three families are woven together across three decades in multi-cultural Britain.
White Teeth
Spooks: Code 9 is a 2008 six-episode BBC spin-off of the spy drama Spooks. In a near-future 2013 Britain following a devastating London terror attack, a new, younger team of MI5 recruits—including Charlie, Rachel, Jez, Vik, Rob, and Kylie—work from a new Manchester headquarters to battle terrorism in a highly surveilled, post-attack world. It offers a younger, more 'maverick' perspective on the Spooks universe, focusing on the challenges of liberty and security in a tense society. The series was commissioned by BBC Fiction's controller Jane Tranter as a spin-off of their long-running drama Spooks in order to attract a younger audience. The decision to relate the new project to the original Spooks was controversial; but there are no crossover characters or storylines and, most importantly, is set in a completely new world.
Spooks: Code 9
The story of a young group of siblings pretty much abandoned by their parents, surviving by their wits - and humor - on a rough Manchester council estate. Whilst they won't admit it, they need help and find it in Steve, a young middle class lad who falls for Fiona, the oldest sibling, and increasingly finds himself drawn to this unconventional and unique family. Anarchic family life seen through the eyes of an exceptionally bright fifteen year old, who struggles to come of age in the context of his belligerent father, closeted brother, psychotic sister and internet porn star neighbors.
