Stephen John Moyer (né Emery; born 11 October 1969) is an English actor and film director. He is best known for portraying the vampire
Bill Compton in the
HBO
Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...
television series ''
True Blood''.
This was followed by the television film ''Lord of Misrule'', filmed in
Fowey,
Cornwall
Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, which also featured
Richard Wilson,
Emily Mortimer and
Prunella Scales
Prunella Margaret Rumney West Scales (''née'' Illingworth; born 22 June 1932) is an English retired actress. She portrayed Sybil Fawlty, the bossy wife of Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), in the BBC comedy ''Fawlty Towers'' and Queen Elizabeth ...
. In 1997, Moyer made his big-screen debut landing the lead role in the
film adaptation
A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...
of the long-running comic strip ''
Prince Valiant'' by
Hal Foster, working alongside
Ron Perlman
Ronald N. Perlman (born April 13, 1950) is an American actor. His credits include the roles of Amoukar in ''Quest for Fire (film), Quest for Fire'' (1981), Salvatore in ''The Name of the Rose (film), The Name of the Rose'' (1986), Vincent in th ...
and
Katherine Heigl. From 2017 to 2019, he starred as Reed Strucker, the lead role in
Fox series ''
The Gifted''.
Early life and career

Moyer was born in
Brentwood, Essex
Brentwood is a town in Essex, England, in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt 20 miles (30 km) north-east of Charing Cross and close to the M25 motorway. The population of the built-up area was 55,340 in 2021.
Brentwood is a t ...
and attended
St Martin's, a
comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a secondary school for pupils aged 11–16 or 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is restricted on the basis ...
in
Hutton, Essex. He graduated from the
London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is a drama school located in Hammersmith, London. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools. In ...
(LAMDA). He became Brentwood Theatre's first patron in October 2007, especially supporting their "Reaching Out, Building On" campaign to help fund the 2008 completion of backstage facilities. After graduating from LAMDA, Moyer worked in theatre for five years. He worked with the
National Theatre Wales, the
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
and the
Oxford Stage Company, work which included going on tour and playing Romeo in productions of ''
Romeo and Juliet
''The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet'', often shortened to ''Romeo and Juliet'', is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare about the romance between two young Italians from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's ...
''. He then made the transition to television and film.
On 2 October 2017, Moyer debuted in the lead role of Reed Strucker, a district attorney whose duties include the apprehension of "mutants" with extraordinary powers, in the
Fox series ''
The Gifted'', loosely based on ''
The X-Men'' feature film series. The devoted family man does not realise, however, just how much his work life and family life are about to intersect. Fox ordered a 10-episode first season.
Personal life
Moyer has a son named Billy, born in 2000, and a daughter, Lilac, born in 2002, from his seventeen-year relationship with journalist Lorien Haynes.
In August 2009, Moyer became engaged to actress
Anna Paquin, who played his character's love interest,
Sookie Stackhouse, in the HBO series ''
True Blood''. They had been having an affair since filming the series pilot in 2007. His divorce was final in 2008. They married on 21 August 2010 at a private residence in
Malibu, California
Malibu ( ; ; ) is a beach city in the Santa Monica Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, about west of downtown Los Angeles. It is known for its Mediterranean climate, its strip of beaches stretching along the Pacific Ocean coa ...
. Moyer and Paquin have a son, Charlie, and a daughter, Poppy, who are
fraternal twins
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...
. The family resides in
Venice, Los Angeles.
Moyer has dealt with alcoholism in the past.
In 2015, he said that he had been sober for 14 years and that the addiction stemmed from his roots in British theatre, emulating the public images of personal heroes like
Peter O'Toole. At a dinner at the CLARE Foundation, a southern California non-profit facility, he stated, "There's this rush that happens from doing our job, this whirring buzz, and you want to continue that buzz." He works with CLARE Foundation to help others with rehabilitation and sobriety.
[
Moyer is a supporter of West Ham United F.C.]
Filmography
Film
Television
Awards
References
External links
*
Fansite
Official website
(archived)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moyer, Stephen
1969 births
Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
English male film actors
English male stage actors
English male television actors
English expatriate male actors in the United States
Living people
Male actors from Brentwood, Essex
English television directors
20th-century English male actors
21st-century English male actors