Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963) is a British actor best known for his film roles such as Prince Septimus in Stardust (2007), Archibald in RocknRolla (2008), Lord Henry Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes (2009), Frank D'Amico in Kick-Ass (2010), Jim Prideaux in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Sinestro in Green Lantern (2011), George in Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Major General Stewart Menzies in The Imitation Game (2014), Merlin in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), Dr. Thaddeus Sivana in Shazam!

Strong was born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia in the Islington borough of London on 5 August 1963, the son of an Austrian mother and an Italian father.

[7] Strong had ambitions to become a lawyer but returned to London after one year of studying German law at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

At the beginning of the 2000s, Strong appeared in Heartlands and in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse, for which he was nominated for the 2003 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role.

He portrayed the traitorous Wictred in Tristan & Isolde, showing his talent with swordplay, and since 2006, he has provided the narration in the BBC's genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?.

In 2008, he played Nick Calderelli in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Mannie Miesel in Flashbacks of a Fool, Finn in Babylon A.D., Archy in RocknRolla, and Philipp Bouhler in Good.

[12] He went on to work with Ridley Scott a second time in the 2010 epic adventure film Robin Hood, portraying antagonist Sir Godfrey.

[14] Strong said the film "closely follows the early comics" and elaborated, "Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan's mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him."

[15] Also in 2011, he voiced Pod in The Secret World of Arrietty and Captain Titus of the Ultramarines Chapter in the video game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine.

[18] He played Matai Shang, the leader of the Therns in John Carter (2012), and starred in the action thriller film Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

[22] In November 2012, Strong was cast in Mindscape,[23] a film in which a man with the ability to enter people's memories begins working on the case of a brilliant but problematic teenager to determine whether she is a sociopath or the victim of trauma.

Jaguar Cars produced an advertisement in 2014, initially shown during Super Bowl XLVIII and later online and on television, featuring Strong alongside fellow English actors Ben Kingsley and Tom Hiddleston.

[25] In 2015, Strong won the Olivier Award for Best Actor for his role in A View from the Bridge, which he starred in as Eddie Carbone at the Young Vic.

[27] Later that year, he starred in a production of The Red Barn, by David Hare, which premiered in October 2016 at the National Theatre, (Lyttelton Stage), and co-starred in the political thriller Miss Sloane, directed by John Madden.

[3][43] He has named Ace in the Hole, Blade Runner, His Girl Friday, The Night of the Hunter, This Is Spinal Tap, and the work of the Coen brothers as his favourite films.