[1] He was brought up in London, although both of his parents were Welsh – his father, actor Glyn Owen (1928–2004), was from Caernarfon, Gwynedd, while his mother, actress Patricia Mort, was from Morriston in Swansea.

Owen said he grew up around "a mob of entertaining, troublesome, fascinating" actors involved in challenging the Lord Chamberlain during some of the most exciting days of a very controversial Royal Court Theatre.

[6] While at RADA he managed to get an acting job and an Equity card, but when he told the principal he needed a term off, the request was denied and he was expelled from the Academy after just a year.

Fortunately, Owen landed a job with Cheek by Jowl and followed the theatre company on tour around the world performing Shakespeare plays.

Early in his professional career he was involved in the Cheek by Jowl productions of Philoctetes and the Shakespeare plays Macbeth, The Tempest and Twelfth Night.

Owen's break on stage was playing Nick in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, directed by Howard Davies, at the Almeida Theatre in London in 1996.

Other highlights of his stage career include playing Dan in Closer by Patrick Marber in 1998 and George in The York Realist by Peter Gill in 2002.

[1] Critics praised his performance in the latter play as "astonishing in its power, throttled fury and sadness"[15] and "superb, richly voiced",[16] and called him "a fast-rising star".