Peter Serafinowicz

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz (/ˌsɛrəˈfɪnoʊwɪtʃ/ SERR-ə-FIN-oh-witch; born 10 July 1972) is an English actor, comedian and writer best known as the voice of Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Pete in Shaun of the Dead (2004), Garthan Saal in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the voice of Big Daddy in Sing (2016) and Sing 2 (2021), and The Sommelier in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017).

On television, Serafinowicz created and starred in the comedy shows Look Around You (2002–2005) and The Peter Serafinowicz Show (2007–2008). He also voiced characters and worked as a creative consultant on South Park (2006–2015), portrayed Edgar Covington in Parks and Recreation (2013–2015), voiced the Fisher King in Doctor Who (2015), and starred as the title character in the live-action adaptation series The Tick (2016). His other television work includes voicing characters in animated series such as Archer, Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, American Dad!, and the second season of What If...?, reprising his live-action role as Garthan Saal.

Serafinowicz has voiced characters in video games such as Dark Souls II (2014), LittleBigPlanet 3 (2014), and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016). He has also directed music videos for acts such as Hot Chip and went viral in 2016 for political satire videos in which he dubbed over videos of Donald Trump with a "sassy" voice, a Cockney accent, and a posh English accent.

Serafinowicz was born into a Catholic family in Liverpool's Gateacre suburb on 10 July 1972, the son of post office worker Catherine (née Geary) and scaffolder Szymon Serafinowicz Jr. His father was born and raised in Surrey to a Polish mother and a Polish–Belarusian father and later moved to Liverpool as an adult. His grandfather, Szymon Serafinowicz Sr, was a suspected Nazi war criminal charged under the provisions of the War Crimes Act 1991 for the murder of three unnamed Jews in 1941–2 committed while he was a commander in the Belarusian Auxiliary Police in Mir, Belarus. He was later declared unfit to stand trial due to advanced dementia. Serafinowicz has a brother, James, a film producer, and a sister Helen, a writer who was married to Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan from 2004 to 2020.

At age three, Serafinowicz moved with his family to the Belle Vale district of Liverpool where he attended Our Lady of the Assumption Primary School. The family moved back to Gateacre when he was 14 and he attended St Francis Xavier's College in neighbouring Woolton. He later said: "I had a very happy childhood, but Belle Vale was very rough. I was only about three when we moved there, but I can still remember it looking very shiny, and it was all landscaped. But it was a very poor area, and it became scruffy quite quickly. [...] Gateacre is traditionally seen as one of the posh areas of Liverpool [but] it wasn't really that much posher!"

Serafinowicz made his broadcasting debut in 1993 on Radio 1 show The Knowledge, a spoof documentary about the music industry. From there he went on to perform in Radio 4 shows Week Ending, Harry Hill's Fruit Corner, Grievous Bodily Radio, The Two Dannys, and A Whole New Ball Game.

On 1 May 1997, he appeared in The Election Night Armistice as Moz Bingham, the fictional press secretary to the-then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who verbally abuses the BBC's Nick Robinson in a spoof phone call over the politician's news coverage. In 1998, he appeared on TV in Comedy Nation and You Are Here. He also had a role in the sitcom How Do You Want Me?, written by Simon Nye.

In 1999, he had several guest appearances in the Channel 4 sitcom Spaced, playing protagonist Tim Bisley's (Simon Pegg) nemesis, Duane Benzie. He made another cameo appearance in the series when it returned in 2001.