Biography
Karl Johnson is a Welsh actor, appearing on stage, film and television. His most notable role to date is the title role in Derek Jarman's 1993 film Wittgenstein and those of Cato the Younger in the television drama series Rome and of Twister Turrill in the BBC costume drama Lark Rise to Candleford.
Known For
Complete Filmography

National Theater Live: The Crucible
2023
A witch hunt is beginning in Arthur Miller's captivating parable of power with Erin Doherty (The Crown) and Brendan Cowell (Yerma). Raised to be seen...

National Theatre Live: Under Milk Wood
2021
as Richard Jenkins
A community is sleeping. If you listen closely, you can hear their dreams. The retired sea captain yearning for his lost love. The landlady living ...

Dream Horse
2021
as Kerby
The inspiring true story of Dream Alliance, an unlikely race horse bred by small town bartender, Jan Vokes. With very little money and no experience, ...

Endgame & Rough for Theatre II
2020
as Nagg
Hamm is an ageing, blind tyrant who is confined to a wheelchair – but soon becomes locked in a bleakly funny and subversively devastating stalemate. ...

The Last Vermeer
2019
as Bernard Bakker
A soldier and member of the Dutch resistance investigates stolen art in the wake of the Second World War, including a Vermeer sold to the Nazis by a f...

Peterloo
2018
as Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary
An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Mancheste...

King Lear
2018
as Fool
An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.

Kaleidoscope
2017
as John
A psychological thriller about the destructive relationship between a middle-aged man and his mother.

The Death of Stalin
2017
as Dr. Lukomsky
When dictator Joseph Stalin dies, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. As they bumble, brawl...

Winter Thaw
2016
as Stepanovich
In late nineteenth-century Russia, Martin Avdeitch is a humble shoemaker whose life has been characterized by grief. Martin must find the courage to l...
Aberfan: The Green Hollow
2016
A film poem to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan disaster, written by Owen Sheers and performed by a stellar cast of Wales's best-known ...

The Carer
2016
as Joseph
Dorottya is a young Hungarian actress with a burning desire: to make it on the English stage. Legendary actor, Sir Michael Gifford suffers from an inc...

Mother
2016
as Old Man in Café
In the aftermath of his mother's death, Edwin reaches out to his extended family for support.

National Theatre Live: Hamlet
2015
as Ghost / Gravedigger
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father's death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages again...

Mr. Turner
2014
as Mr. Booth
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful ...

The Gospel According to St Derek
2014
as Self
Using interviews with close family, friends and collaborators, The Gospel According to St. Derek bears witness to Derek Jarman’s unique approach to lo...

Under Milk Wood
2014
as Drowned / Voice
An all star cast unite to perform a distinctive BBC Wales Television adaptation of Dylan Thomas's radio play, presented in collaboration with National...
Mr Invisible
2013
as The Handler
A lonely old man seems invisible to the world around him. But when he journeys to the heart of London, being 'invisible' proves to be his greatest wea...

The Sea
2013
as Blunden
A man returns to the sea where he spent his childhood summers in search of peace following the death of his wife.

Good Vibrations
2012
as George Hooley
The story of music legend Terri Hooley, a key figure in Belfast's punk rock scene. Hooley founded the Good Vibrations store from which a record label ...

The Deep Blue Sea
2011
as Mr. Miller
The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

The Pier
2011
as Larry McCarthy
After 20 years of no contact with his father, Jack McCarthy (played by Hurley) travels from New York to his father Larry's death bed in Cork. Upon arr...

National Theatre Live: Frankenstein
2011
as De Lacey
Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein’s bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. M...

Third Star
2010
as Ticket Seller
James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a...

Is Anybody There?
2009
as Arthur (uncredited)
A young boy who lives in an old folks' home strikes up a friendship with a retired magician.

I Know You Know
2009
as Ernie
Jamie, an 11-year-old boy, is fascinated by his father Charlie’s espionage work until the world of spies becomes all too real. Charlie lives in his ow...

The Edge of Love
2008
as Dai Fred
When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and his flirtatious wife Caitlin sweep into war-torn London, the last thing they expect is to bump into Dylan's child...

Dog Altogether
2007
as Jack
Joseph is a man plagued by a violence and rage who is driving him to self destruction. As he falls further into turmoil, Joseph scours the landscape i...

Hot Fuzz
2007
as PC Bob Walker
Former London constable Nicholas Angel finds it difficult to adapt to his new assignment in the sleepy British village of Sandford. Not only does he m...

Four Last Songs
2007
as Erico
A comic drama set on a Mediterranean island, where a motley collection of characters is seeking musical redemption.

Copying Beethoven
2006
as Stefan Holtz
A fictionalised exploration of Beethoven's life in his final days working on his Ninth Symphony. It is 1824. Beethoven is racing to finish his new sym...

The Illusionist
2006
as Doctor / Old Man
With his eye on a lovely aristocrat, a gifted illusionist named Eisenheim uses his powers to win her away from her betrothed, a crown prince. But Eise...

Elizabeth David: A Life in Recipes
2006
as Norman Douglas
Elizabeth David is the most important cookery writer of the 20th century. David's public image was of an elegant, respectable and somewhat austere fig...

Heidi
2005
as Old Man
Swiss girl Adelheid 'Heidi' is orphaned young. Aunt Detie brings her to grandpa Alp and his wife, who live isolated in the Alps since his murder charg...

Frozen
2005
as Coastguard Bill
It's two years since the mysterious disappearance of Kath Swarbrick's older sister Annie, but Kath remains haunted by a need to know what happened. Wh...

When I'm Sixty-Four
2004
as Billy
When widowed cabbie Ray and retired teacher Jim meet by chance, they discover they long for the same things from life: adventure, challenge and love. ...
England Expects
2004
The story follows former football hooligan Ray Knight (Steven Mackintosh), a normal everyday family man who works as a security guard at a financial t...

77 Beds
2003
as Spiritual Father
One sleepless night Ishmael, a young spacey urban nomad, starts counting back through all the beds he has ever slept in.

Tomorrow La Scala!
2002
as Sydney
Members of a British opera troupe mount a production of "Sweeney Todd" within a maximum-security prison.

Pure
2002
as Granddad
A young boy trying to deal with his mother's heroin addiction befriends a waitress who helps him cope with the tough situation.

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon
1998
as John Deakin
In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, ...

Saint-Ex
1996
as Didier Daurat
Poetic biography of author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Wittgenstein
1993
as Ludwig Wittgenstein
A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose p...

Close My Eyes
1991
as Colin
After some years of tension, Richard begins a sexual relationship with his sister Natalie. Now married, the relationship proves dangerously obsessiona...

Let Him Have It
1991
as Parris
In 1950s England, slow-witted Derek Bentley falls in with a group of petty criminals led by Chris Craig, a teenager with a fondness for American gangs...

The Shawl
1989
as Charles
Miss A, troubled by problems, consults a clairvoyant. Can he solve them for her by summoning the spirits? Or is he just a fraud, out to steal her mone...

The Black and Blue Lamp
1988
Satirical and surreal play by Arthur Ellis, dealing with the manner in which the British police force has been represented on TV for four decades. In ...

A Prayer for the Dying
1987
as Fitzgerald
Martin, an I.R.A. hitman, is seen by a Catholic priest while carrying out a hit. He grows a bond with the priest and his niece. But his past and his f...

Prick Up Your Ears
1987
as Douglas Orton
When the young, attractive Joe Orton meets the older, more introverted Kenneth Halliwell at drama school, he befriends the kindred spirit and they sta...

The Magic Shop
1982
A father and son enter a magic shop that may contain real magic.

Sons and Lovers
1981
as Paul Morel
An adaptation for television by Trevor Griffiths of DH Lawrence's classic novel

The Tempest
1979
as Ariel, an airy spirit
Prospero, a potent magician, lives on a desolate isle with his virginal daughter, Miranda. He's in exile, banished from his duchy by his usurping brot...
Cold Harbour
1978
as Geoff
A beautiful Chilean exile called Tina is stranded in a new country.

Jubilee
1978
as Sphinx
Queen Elizabeth I visits late 1970s England to find a depressing landscape where life has changed since her time.