Babou Ceesay

Ceesay was born in London, and grew up in West Africa. He holds dual citizenship and is of Gambian descent.^[1] Ceesay trained on the One Year Course at the Oxford School of Drama and has been involved in many significant projects on stage, including The Overwhelming, opposite Andrew Garfield, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Before attending drama school, Ceesay studied Microbiology at Imperial College London, and also worked as an internal auditor at accounting firm, Deloitte.^[2]

Ceesay's first major role was in the horror/comedy film Severance. Two years later, he got a role on TV in an episode of Whistleblower. He made guest appearances in multiple British TV shows, including Silent Witness, Law & Order: UK, Casualty, Strike Back, Luther, Getting On and Lewis.

In 2013, he appeared in the Nigerian film Half of a Yellow Sun, alongside Thandiwe Newton, Chiwetel Ejiofor and another rising star, John Boyega.^[3] In 2014, he starred in '71.

In 2015, he was cast in NBC's TV drama A.D. The Bible Continues as John the Apostle.^[4] He also appeared in the thriller Eye in the Sky (2015)^[5] and the British action comedy Free Fire (2016), set in Boston and starring Brie Larson, Sharlto Copley and Armie Hammer.

He made a return to television with a major role in the Channel 4 drama National Treasure as Jerome Sharp, the lawyer of Paul Finchley, played by Robbie Coltrane.^[6] He then starred in a BBC One television movie, Damilola, Our Loved Boy, based on the murder of Damilola Taylor, a ten-year-old Nigerian boy living in London, and the trial that followed.^[7] He played the role of the father Richard Taylor, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor.^[8]

In August 2016, he was cast in the British miniseries Guerrilla, alongside Idris Elba and Freida Pinto.^[9]

In 2019, he was cast as Manny Mensah in the BBC One drama television series Dark Money, with John Schwab and Joseph May. He also performed in the American civil rights drama The Best of Enemies (2019), about school integration and an unlikely alliance in a town in North Carolina.

In 2020, Ceesay was cast as DI Jackson Mendy in the Alibi television series We Hunt Together, with Eve Myles, Hermione Corfield and Dipo Ola in the other main roles.^[10] In 2021, Paul Abbott's crime drama Wolfe premiered on Sky; in it, Ceesay played the title role as a forensic scientist in Manchester.

In 2025, he took on a lead role of Kumi Morrow, a cyborg, in the sci-fi drama Alien: Earth, part of the Alien franchise.

In March 2026, it was announced that Ceesay had been cast as Ser Bennis in the second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.^[11]

He lives in London with his wife, journalist Anna Ceesay, and their two children.^[12]