Mark Gatiss is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, director, producer and novelist. He is best known for his work in television acting in and co-creating shows with Steven Moffat. Gatiss has received several awards including a BAFTA TV Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and two Laurence Olivier Awards.
Gatiss was born in Sedgefield, County Durham, England, to Winifred Rose (née O'Kane, 1931–2003) and Maurice Gatiss (1931–2021). He grew up opposite the Victorian psychiatric hospital Winterton, and later in Trimdon, before his father, a colliery engineer, took a job as engineer at the School Aycliffe Mental Hospital in Heighington. His family background is working class. His passions included watching Doctor Who and Hammer Horror films on television, reading Sherlock Holmes and H. G. Wells, and collecting fossils. All those interests have influenced his creative work.
One of his early forays into theatre was in Darlington in March 1983, playing Dad, in The Waiting Room by Tony Stowers, a macabre and surreal Pinteresque comedy, which explores a disintegrating family unit. In July of the same year, he would have acted in Stowers' follow-up, A Sense of Insecurity, but was unable to take the role because his father insisted he take his exams instead.
Gatiss attended Heighington Church of England Primary School, and Woodham Comprehensive School in Newton Aycliffe. At the latter, he was two years ahead of Paul Magrs, who also went on to write Doctor Who fiction. Gatiss then studied Theatre Arts at Bretton Hall College, an arts college affiliated to the University of Leeds.
