Aidan Turner

Aidan Turner is an Irish actor born on 19 June 1983. He gained international recognition for playing the dwarf Kíli in Peter Jackson's feature film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit, as well as for portraying the title character Ross Poldark in the BBC historical drama series Poldark. He is also well known for his early television roles as the vampire John Mitchell in the supernatural series Being Human and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Desperate Romantics.

Born at home in Clondalkin, a suburban town in Dublin, Turner grew up there before his family relocated to Walkinstown. He attended secondary school at St Mac Dara's Community College and later transferred to Firhouse Community College. Before pursuing acting, he was a successful ballroom dancer, placing third in the adult category at the Irish National Championships. After secondary school, he briefly worked alongside his father as an apprentice electrician. His interest in acting developed while working at a cinema, leading him to audition for the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, from which he graduated in 2004.

Following drama school, Turner began his career on stage in theatrical productions such as The Plough and the Stars, Romeo and Juliet, and A Cry from Heaven. His early screen work included an uncredited television role in The Tudors in 2007. That same year, he produced and starred in the feature film Porcelain, shot in a Dublin convent, though only a trailer was released. He soon established a presence on television, appearing as Ruairí McGowan in the Irish medical drama The Clinic from 2008 to 2009, followed by his role in the 2009 BBC series Desperate Romantics.

Turner achieved wider acclaim for playing John Mitchell in Being Human between 2009 and 2011. This role brought him to the attention of director Peter Jackson, who cast him as Kíli in The Hobbit trilogy from 2012 to 2014. For his performance in the second film, The Desolation of Smaug, Turner earned the Empire Award for Best Male Newcomer in 2014. During this period, he also featured as Luke Garroway in the 2013 fantasy movie adaptation of The Mortal Instruments.

In 2015, Turner starred as Philip Lombard in the BBC miniseries adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None. That same year, he took on the lead role in the BBC series Poldark, which ran until 2019. His performance as Ross Poldark earned him the inaugural Impact Award at the National Television Awards in 2016.

Turner continued taking on major television projects in the following years. He played the title artist in the 2021 drama series Leonardo and starred as psychologist Dr Joseph O'Loughlin in the 2022 crime series The Suspect. In 2023, he portrayed tennis coach Glenn Lapthorne in the drama Fifteen-Love. He subsequently joined the cast of the Disney+ series Rivals in 2024 as journalist Declan O'Hara, with a second season set to premiere in May 2026.

In his personal life, Turner met actress Caitlin FitzGerald in 2017 and purchased an eighteenth-century house in East London that same year. The couple married in August 2020 and had a child together in January 2022. Turner is also a long-standing enthusiast of snooker.