SOME FACTS ABOUT A.T.:

"MacBeth On The Estate" (1997) was filmed at the Ladywood housing estate in Birmingham, Britain, where he lived when he was growing up. Some of the extras in the film were actual residents of the estate at the time and some were childhood friends of his. In fact his brother Jason Tiernan appears in it.

Cast and crew of MacBeth on the Ladywood Estate in Birmingham

Wilsom Milan is his favourite theatre director. He performed in two of his plays in 2003: "Flesh Wound" at the Royal Court Theatre and "True West" at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre. The former was written by Che Walker and the latter by Sam Shepherd.

Che Walker

Rumour has it that the first film he ever 'appeared' in was Bob Dylan's "Don't Look Back" (1967) ....because in 1965 his mother, Mary - who was expecting him at the time - went to a Dylan concert at the Birmingham Town Hall which was being filmed for this movie and the camera panned across the audience!

The day after filming the exotic harem scene in his full body prosthetic for "300" he passed a group of some of the women who were in that scene as they were waiting for a bus to pick them up from the film lot. He waved to them but they didn't recognize him without his 'mutant' prosthetics!

Scene from "300"

Other performers who have influenced him are Lee Marvin, Mick Jagger, John Lydon and Joe Strummer.

"Point Blank" starring Lee Marvin

He has appeared in "The Bill" three times as different characters: firstly as Guy Walsh in "The Lion's Den" (1997) , secondly as Alan Dodds in "Out And About" (1999) and thirdly as Mike Wilder in "Ep. 19.14" (2003). During the filming of one of these episodes a security guard locked him out of the set. AT had to convince him that he was indeed an actor in the production and not just some geezer trying to break in!

Mark Wingett

He is good friends with Mark Wingett who played DC Jim Carver in long-running police series "The Bill" and Dave in the mod epic "Quadrophenia" (1979). He has co-starred with him in two recent productions: "Spartacus" (2007) and "Stone's War" (2008).

He has appeared alongside actor Robert Lindsay in two productions "Hawk" (2000) and "Hornblower" (1998). When filming the latter he suffered badly with sea-sickness, just like the main character in the books. Because of this he has vowed never to film at sea again.

Robert Lindsay as Captain Pellew in "Hornblower"

He admires the work of Japanese film director Akira Kurasowa who directed the epic "Shichinin no samurai" (1954) (Seven Samurai) and the acclaimed Shakespeare adaptation "Ran" (1985) amongst other works.

Japanese film director Akira Kurasowa

Music is one of his main passions in life and he counts himself as a dedicated fan of Bob Dylan and of Tom Waits. He was involved in the very early punk scene in the UK and cites The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Buzzcocks,

The Specials

and Dexy's Midnight Runners as amongst some of this favourite musical influences.

He was 'the face' of the British band Suede in the mid-1990's. The backstage passes of their 1994/5 tour sported his sneering visage. He directed and acted in several film clips from the "Suede - Introducing The Band" video, most notably "Killing Of A Flash Boy" with his production company at the time called Keeps On Burning.

Sude video "Introducint The Band"

One of his favourite films is "Performance" (1970) starring Mick Jagger and written by Donald Cammell. It was directed by Cammell and Nicolas Roeg. Roeg also directed "Two Deaths" in 1995 in which AT played Captain Jorgu.

He has been in three television productions directed by Antonia Bird: "Safe" (1993), "Rehab" (2003) and "Spooks" (2005). In "Rehab" the cast were encouraged to help develop the script themselves.

British film director Antonia Bird