Biography

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz is an English actor, comedian, director and screenwriter. His film roles include the voice of Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Pete in Shaun of the Dead (2004), Garthan Saal in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the voice of Big Daddy in Sing (2016) and Sing 2 (2021), and The Sommelier in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017).

On television, Serafinowicz created and starred in the comedy shows Look Around You (2002–2005) and The Peter Serafinowicz Show (2007–2008). He also voiced characters and worked as a creative consultant on South Park (2006–2015), portrayed Edgar Covington in Parks and Recreation (2013–2015), voiced the Fisher King in Doctor Who (2015), and starred as the title character in the live-action adaptation series The Tick (2016). His other television work includes voicing characters in animated series such as Archer, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, American Dad!, and the second season of What If...?, reprising his live-action role as Garthan Saal.

Serafinowicz has voiced characters in video games such as Dark Souls II (2014), LittleBigPlanet 3 (2014), and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016). He has also directed music videos for acts such as Hot Chip and went viral in 2016 for political satire videos in which he dubbed over videos of Donald Trump with a "sassy" voice, a Cockney accent, and a posh English accent.

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz was born into a Catholic family in Liverpool's Gateacre suburb on 10 July 1972, the son of post office worker Catherine (née Geary) and scaffolder Szymon Serafinowicz Jr. His father was born and raised in Surrey to a Polish mother and a Polish–Belarusian father and later moved to Liverpool as an adult. Serafinowicz has a brother, James, a film producer, and a sister Helen, a writer who was married to Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan from 2004 to 2020.

At age three, Serafinowicz moved with his family to the Belle Vale district of Liverpool where he attended Our Lady of the Assumption Primary School. The family moved back to Gateacre when he was 14 and he attended St Francis Xavier's College in neighbouring Woolton. He later said: "I had a very happy childhood, but Belle Vale was very rough. I was only about three when we moved there, but I can still remember it looking very shiny, and it was all landscaped. But it was a very poor area, and it became scruffy quite quickly. [...] Gateacre is traditionally seen as one of the posh areas of Liverpool [but] it wasn't really that much posher!"

Serafinowicz made his broadcasting debut in 1993 on Radio 1 show The Knowledge, a spoof documentary about the music industry. From there he went on to perform in Radio 4 shows Week Ending, Harry Hill's Fruit Corner, Grievous Bodily Radio, The Two Dannys, and A Whole New Ball Game.

Serafinowicz made guest appearances on television, including the comedy shows Smack the Pony and Hippies (both 1999), Black Books (2000), I'm Alan Partridge (2002) and Little Britain (2003), comedy-drama Murder Most Horrid (1999), ITV drama series Agatha Christie's Marple (2006) and Parks and Recreation (2013).