Will Sharpe

Sharpe was born in London and raised in Tokyo until the age of eight.^[4][5] The Sharpe family then moved back to England and settled in Surrey.^[6]

His mother is Japanese, while his father is British.^[7] He has two younger siblings.^[6] His brother is composer Arthur Sharpe, who has written music for The Darkest Universe, Black Pond, and Flowers.^[8]

After returning to England, he studied at Winchester College.^[4] Sharpe then studied Classics at the University of Cambridge, where he was the president of the Cambridge Footlights.^[9][10]

Sharpe graduated in 2008 and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) for their 2008/2009 season.^[11] He spent a year at the RSC, appearing in such plays as The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, in which he played a young Isaac Newton.^[12][13] He played the character of Yuki Reid in the BBC medical drama Casualty.^[12] In 2009, he directed and co-wrote, with his friend Tom Kingsley, the short film Cockroach. The pair's first feature-length film, Black Pond, earned them a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.^[4]

Sharpe is known for writing, directing, and starring in the dark comedy-drama Flowers, which premiered on Channel 4 in 2016.^[11] Starring Olivia Colman, Julian Barratt, Daniel Rigby and Sophia Di Martino, Flowers is a black comedy that tackles mental health, and follows the four eccentric members of the Flowers family as they navigate their lives and their inner demons. The first series won a BAFTA Television Award for best scripted comedy, and the second series aired in 2018 to widespread critical acclaim.^[14]

In 2020, Sharpe won a BAFTA Television Award for his supporting role as Rodney Yamaguchi in BBC drama Giri/Haji—a role The Independent called 'one of the most riotously funny turns since Richard E Grant stepped out as Withnail.'^[15][16] Sharpe directed and co-wrote the 2021 biographical comedy-drama film The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the artist Louis Wain.^[17][18] In 2022, Sharpe joined the cast of the HBO series The White Lotus in its second season, set in Sicily, as Ethan Spiller, a newly wealthy tech entrepreneur on vacation.^[19] This role earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.^[20]

In 2023, Sharpe was announced as the director of the film adaptation of Japanese Breakfast frontwoman Michelle Zauner's memoir, Crying in H Mart.^[21] In 2025, Zauner said that Sharpe had stepped down from the project.^[22] In 2024, Sharpe had a supporting role in the comedy-drama film A Real Pain, alongside Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. That same year, he starred in Emmanuelle.^[23] Sharpe also began hosting the paranormal podcast Extrasensory.^[24] In 2025, he was cast in a lead role in the romantic comedy series Too Much as well as the upcoming British series Amadeus and Prodigies.

Sharpe has type two bipolar disorder.^[25][26] He is married to actress Sophia Di Martino,^[27][28] with whom he has been in a relationship since 2009.^[2] They have two children, born in 2019 and 2021.^[29][30]

• List of British actors
• List of British film directors