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Angus Macfadyen

Scottish actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ355392
Source-derived summary

Angus Macfadyen (born 1963) is a Scottish actor. His roles include Robert the Bruce, both in Braveheart and Robert the Bruce, Komodo in Warriors of Virtue, Vice-Counsel Dupont in Equilibrium, Jeff Denlon in the Saw franchise, Robert Rogers in the AMC historical drama Turn: Washington's Spies, McCreedy in Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo, and biologist James Murray in The Lost City of Z. He has made appearances on several television series such as Californication, Criminal Minds, Chuck, and Superman & Lois.

Early life

Macfadyen was brought up in the Philippines, Africa, Singapore and France. His father was a doctor in the World Health Organization. Macfadyen attended the University of Edinburgh and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

Career

1990s

Macfadyen's first role was Philip in the film made for television The Lost Language of Cranes (1991). He portrayed a young man who must tell his parents that he is gay. Playing the role of his father was fellow Scottish actor Brian Cox. Macfadyen then acted in five episodes of Soldier Soldier before appearing in the television film 15: The Life and Death of Philip Knight (1993) and also on the television series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994) about a salesman who runs a radio station in a mental institution. That role led to his role as Robert the Bruce in Mel Gibson's film Braveheart (1995).

Editorial summary

“Angus Macfadyen” enters the record as scottish actor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Angus, Macfadyen and Scottish can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1963, 1991, 1993, 1994—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1963-09-21. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Angus, Macfadyen and Scottish.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Angus Macfadyen” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Angus, Macfadyen and Scottish provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q355392. VIAF identifies the subject as 39587435. The Library of Congress control number is no2003026038. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1991, 1993 and 1994.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Angus Macfadyen”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Angus Macfadyen primary sources, Angus Macfadyen archive and Angus research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Angus Macfadyen”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Angus Macfadyen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.