Peter Serafinowicz

When Peter Serafinowicz plays a pompous man, the voice does much of the work. He is good at giving bluster the sound of authority, without asking us to respect the person doing it. We value his precise parody most, particularly when he has helped invent the material. With Robert Popper, he co-created and performed in Look Around You (2002–2005), a spoof science programme that makes useful room for that skill.

His early film work included voicing Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) and playing Pete in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004), alongside Simon Pegg. His own sketch series, The Peter Serafinowicz Show (2007–2008), kept character-making central to his work. American supporting roles included Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), before the live-action series The Tick (2016–2019) gave him the title role.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) shows how little an accomplished comic voice can do when the humour is too mild. Serafinowicz voices Reginald Smith, who runs the farm, alongside Nick Mohammed’s scientist Dr Fry. We were properly unsettled by the rows of hens wearing fixed smiles and waddling contentedly towards a door. The film holds that picture long enough for their happiness to become disturbing. Smith and Fry are mildly funny, but the sitcom comedy around them cannot sustain the chill; this is a pleasant enough use of Serafinowicz without being a particularly rewarding one.

We liked Amandaland (2025) considerably more, though our praise belongs chiefly to Lucy Punch’s status-hungry Amanda and Joanna Lumley’s cruel delivery. Serafinowicz plays Johannes in a wider ensemble that takes more effort to feel like a group. He also plays Spitelout in Dean DeBlois’s How to Train Your Dragon (2025), a remake whose flying still works but whose longer, slower retelling adds little. Both are better approached for what interests us about the whole production than for his name in the cast. For a clearer sense of what he can invent, start with Look Around You.