Simon Montagu McBurney (born 25 August 1957) is an English actor, playwright, and theatre and opera director.

He has had roles in the films The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Friends with Money, The Last King of Scotland (both 2006), The Golden Compass (2007), The Duchess (2008), Robin Hood, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (both 2010), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Magic in the Moonlight, The Theory of Everything (both 2014), Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) and Nosferatu (2024).

Simon McBurney's mother, Anne Francis Edmondstone (née Charles), was a British secretary of English, Scottish and Irish ancestry.

A Disappearing Number was a devised piece conceived and directed by McBurney, taking as its inspiration the story of the collaboration between two of the 20th century's most remarkable pure mathematicians, the Indian genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, and Cambridge don G. H.

He played the recurring role of Cecil the choirmaster in The Vicar of Dibley, CIA computer whiz Garland in Body of Lies, Dr. Atticus Noyle in The Manchurian Candidate (2004), British diplomat Nigel Stone in The Last King of Scotland, the metrosexual husband Aaron in Friends with Money, Fra Pavel in The Golden Compass, Charles James Fox in The Duchess, and Oliver Lacon in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

He starred in The Encounter, about photographer Loren McIntyre becoming lost in the Javari Valley in Brazil and his experiences with locals, which premiered at the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival.

[17] In the 2005 New Year Honours, McBurney was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) "for services to Drama".