Biography

Hugo was born, bred & buttered in North Yorkshire, spending the first years of his life next to a farm in the idyllic village of Horsehouse in Coverdale before moving to Harrogate to begin his schooling. As the years went by, Hugo struggled with the effects of his parents’ alcoholism and separation and, as he masked his misery with the face of class-clown, it soon became apparent that he was more suited to a life on stage & screen than the world of academia. Possibly as a result of this he was politely asked to leave school prematurely and soon found himself getting hired & quickly fired from an impressive number of menial jobs as well as enjoying a lengthy spell of homelessness.

At the age of twenty-one, having literally dragged himself out of the gutter, Hugo moved to London to train in the performing arts, supporting himself with a number of holiday jobs, the most memorable of which was acting as a minder & road-manager for Tony the Tiger of ‘Frosties’ fame. On the very same day he graduated from drama school or ‘trauma school’ as he likes to call it, Hugo secured his first television role in the long-running police procedural drama, The Bill, playing a nonchalantly sexy ram-raider by the name of Dave Williamson. Numerous roles in TV and film followed but it wasn’t until his appearance as Guy, the ‘Lunchbox’ in 1997’s smash hit film The Full Monty that Hugo came to prominence, winning a Screen Actors Guild award.

Hugo used his newfound recognition to fulfil a longtime goal of working in humanitarian aid, becoming first a patron of War Child UK then helping to found No Strings International, a charity which uses puppetry as an educational tool for children in the developing world. Projects included providing windup radios for child-headed families in post-genocide Rwanda, land mine awareness initiatives in Kabul, Afghanistan and a mobile bakery programme in post-war Kosovo. Hugo was also an ambassador for The Prince’s Trust and was able to fill another lifelong ambition when he played football for England at Wembley for SoccerAid 2008 in support of UNICEF.

After eleven years of film & television work Hugo embarked on his first stage engagement working alongside theatre titans, Sir Peter Hall and Harold Pinter. Following a successful summer season at Theatre Royal Bath playing Otto in Noel Coward’s ‘Design for Living’ & Robert in Pinter’s ‘Betrayal’, Hugo toured the Coward around the south of England before transferring the Pinter into The Duchess Theatre in London’s West End.

Hugo continues to regularly ‘tread the boards’ but it’s his film & television work for which he remains best known. Highlights have included feature films ‘The Interpreter’, starring Nicole Kidman & Sean Penn, directed by Sidney Pollack and Lars Von Trier’s ‘Nymphomaniac’ in which he played opposite Uma Thurman. Prominent television roles include Sergeant George in the highly acclaimed adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ‘Bleak House’, Inspector Valentine in ‘Father Brown’ & Captain Treville in ‘The Musketeers’ all for the BBC, Lucius in Jez Butterworth’s epic historical drama ‘Britannia’ for Sky & Amazon, DI David Bradford in Acorn AMC’s gritty detective series ‘London Kills’ & Lieutenant Bohdan in ‘Shadow & Bone’ for Netflix.

Hugo is also an accomplished radio & voiceover artist who has narrated numerous documentaries and most famously played DCI John Stone in nine series of BBC Radio 4’s hard-hitting police drama ‘Stone’.

Hugo is married to award-winning film, TV & radio writer, Vivienne Harvey and they recently celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. They live in North London with their two young daughters, Nico & Elki and their three cats, Iggy, Otis & Mabel. He has an older brother, Marcus who lives with his family in Guatemala. 

Hugo enjoys running, falconry, travel and football (riding the emotional roller coaster of a Leeds United fan). When he grows up he wants to be an astronaut , a magician or a train driver.