years_active birth_place nationality name birth_date article_title birth_name occupation
1981 -- present stockton-on-tees , county durham , england british jeremy swift 19 october 1960 jeremy swift
 jeremy peter swift actor
jeremy swift

jeremy peter swift -lrb- born 19 october 1960 in stockton-on-tees , county durham -rrb- is an english actor .
he studied drama at guildford drama school from 1978 to 1981 and worked almost exclusively in theatre throughout the 1980s , working with companies such as deborah warner 's kick theatre company and comedy performance-art group the people show .
during this period swift also worked on numerous television commercials .
in the 1990s he acted at the national theatre working alongside david tennant and richard wilson in phillyda lloyd 's production of `` what the butler saw '' .
he starred in the itv sitcom `` blind men '' , and `` vanity fair '' for bbc1 .
in the 2000s , swift appeared in `` gosford park '' playing the footman arthur , and roman polanski 's `` oliver twist '' as mr bumble .
for bbc3 he played barry in the cult hit `` the smoking room '' and had a theatrical hit with `` abigail 's party '' , the last production at the old hampstead theatre and their longest running west end transfer .
in 2009 he played the lead in the true story of sean greenhalgh in `` the antiques ' rogue show '' for bbc2 with liz smith and peter vaughn , the deacon in a film adaptation of anton checkhov 's short story `` the duel '' and featured in `` canoe man '' , a 2010 tv drama based on the john darwin disappearance case .
he has recently finished shooting the independent british feature film `` downhill '' , which is a comedy about four men attempting alfred wainwright 's coast to coast walk .
it will be released in 2013 and co-stars ned dennehy , karl theobald and richard lumsden .
the film is directed by james rouse and the screenplay was written by torben betts .
he currently plays the emotionally repressed butler spratt in `` downton abbey '' on itv .
swift is also a composer and his work includes the score for `` werewolves : the dark survivors '' -lrb- wide-eyed entertainment -rrb- for the discovery channel and itv global .
