An ordinary Englishman who looks as if he has got off a bicycle, and who can be trusted up to the moment he decides not to be. His best work is on British television; his most famous is in Georgia, in an accent he earned.
Fi1m perspective
Simon arrives at Summerdown comprehensive on a bicycle with a cigarette lit, in Teachers (2001), and lies to the first colleague he meets about how the lesson went. Lincoln plays him with a slouch and a grin, and he lets us watch the lie being decided halfway through the sentence. That is what he does better than most actors of his generation: he is likeable in a way that survives what his characters do, and he shows us the moment they choose to do it.
He arrived as Egg in This Life (1996), the one in the house least sure what he is for, and made the friendships believable alongside Daniela Nardini and Jack Davenport. Teachers gave him the lead, and for two series Tim Loane's writing kept pace with him; Nina Sosanya's Jenny gave him someone to lie to who could tell, and their scenes had a snap most British comedy-drama of the time did not attempt. He directed two episodes himself, which tells you whose show it was. Love Actually (2003) gave him Mark, a small part in a crowded film, and it did not register with us. Afterlife (2005–06) followed.
Then Frank Darabont cast him as Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead (2010), a Georgia deputy who wakes in a hospital to find the dead have got up. An Englishman doing the American South is a risk, and Lincoln worked at it until it stopped being one. We were more moved than we expected to be by Rick walking home in the pilot to an empty house, because Lincoln plays a man refusing to understand what is in front of him, and Darabont gives him the time to refuse. Rick is a decent man who keeps having to decide how much decency he can afford, and Lincoln keeps that decision visible for eight years. The series wandered; he did not. If we have a reservation, it is that an actor built on likeability has less to give when the writing asks him only to be hard, and the later seasons asked often. He left in 2018, came back for the 2022 finale, and returned again for The Ones Who Live (2024), which he co-created and produced, opposite Danai Gurira, who sharpened the parent series the moment she arrived and does the same here.
He has said he wanted to make something people could talk about in bars and workplaces, and he did, though we suspect the talk will outlast the later seasons. Start with This Life and Teachers, then the first six episodes of The Walking Dead, and stop where we told you to.
Biography
Andrew Lincoln is an English actor, born Andrew James Clutterbuck in London on 14 September 1973. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
His early major roles were as Egg in the BBC drama This Life (1996–1997), Simon Casey in the Channel 4 sitcom Teachers (2001–2003), Mark in the film Love Actually (2003) and Dr Robert Bridge in the ITV series Afterlife (2005–2006).
Lincoln gained international recognition for portraying Rick Grimes in the AMC series The Walking Dead (2010–2018) and reprised the role in the 2024 spin-off The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live. He won the Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television in 2015 and 2017.
