Other films include Alien (1979), Heaven's Gate (1980), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), White Mischief (1987), Scandal (1989), The Field (1990), King Ralph (1991), Rob Roy (1995), and Contact (1997).

[6][7] He voiced roles in Watership Down (1978), The Lord of the Rings (1978), The Plague Dogs (1982), The Black Cauldron (1985), Dogville (2003), Valiant (2005) and BBC's Merlin (2008–2012), as well as The Gruffalo's Child (2011), and Sailor John in Thomas & Friends: Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure (2015).

[10][11][12] In 1937, Hurt's father- previously vicar of St John's parish in Sunderland, County Durham- moved his family to Derbyshire, where he became Perpetual Curate of Holy Trinity Church.

[13] At the age of eight, Hurt was sent to the Anglican St Michael's Preparatory School in Otford, Kent,[14] where he eventually developed his passion for acting.

[15] Hurt stated that a senior master at the school would abuse him and others by removing his two false front teeth and putting his tongue in the boys' mouths, as well as rubbing their faces with his stubble, and that the experience affected him hugely.

Hurt's first major role was as Richard Rich in the Fred Zinnemann directed historical drama film A Man for All Seasons (1966).

[20] Hurt acted alongside Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Orson Welles, Robert Shaw, Susannah York, and Vanessa Redgrave.

Hurt then acted in the British romantic drama The Sailor from Gibraltar starring Jeanne Moreau directed by Tony Richardson.

That same year he acted in the British war film Before Winter Comes opposite David Niven and the drama In Search of Gregory alongside Julie Christie.

He then played Timothy Evans, who was hanged for murders committed by his landlord John Christie, in 10 Rillington Place (1971), earning him his first BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

His portrayal of Quentin Crisp in the TV play The Naked Civil Servant (1975) gave him prominence and earned him the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.

[20] The following year, Hurt appeared as Anthony John Grey, a crooked computer programming expert in The Sweeney episode Tomorrow Man.

[21] Hurt appeared in the 1978 film Midnight Express, for which he won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (the latter of which he lost to Christopher Walken for his performance in The Deer Hunter).

[21] Around the same time, he lent his voice to Ralph Bakshi's animated film adaptation of Lord of the Rings, playing the role of Aragorn.

Hurt voiced Hazel, the heroic rabbit leader of his warren in the film adaptation of Watership Down (both 1978) and later played the major villain, General Woundwort, in the animated television series version.

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian praised his performance writing, "John Hurt, in complex and intricate prosthetics, plays Merrick with an unforgettably distinctive, gentle, quavering voice".

Hurt portrayed James Graham, 1st Duke of Montrose in the historical drama Rob Roy opposite Liam Neeson, Jessica Lange and Tim Roth.

In 1997 he starred in Richard Kwietniowski's Love and Death on Long Island for which he was nominated for the BIFA for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film.

In the 2006 film V for Vendetta, he played the role of Adam Sutler, leader of the Norsefire fascist dictatorship and in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) he appeared as Harold Oxley.

[29] More than thirty years after The Naked Civil Servant, Hurt reprised the role of Quentin Crisp in the 2009 film An Englishman in New York.

[30] He returned to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, playing the on-screen Big Brother for the Paper Zoo Theatre Company's stage adaptation of the novel in June 2009.

[36][37] Hurt was due to appear alongside Ben Kingsley in a film entitled Broken Dream, to be directed by Neil Jordan.

[38] In 2015, Hurt guest stars the voice of Sailor John, the main antagonist in the Thomas & Friends film Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure along with Eddie Redmayne (Ryan) and Jamie Campbell Bower (Skiff).

Anselm (born Michael), a Roman Catholic convert who became a monk and writer at Glenstal Abbey; Hurt contributed to his brother's books.

In 1962, Hurt's father left his parish in Cleethorpes to become headmaster of St Michael's College in the Central American country of British Honduras.

[citation needed] On 24 January 1990, Hurt married Joan Dalton, an American production assistant,[22] whom he had met while filming Scandal.

The couple moved to County Wicklow, where they settled close to their friends, director John Boorman and Claddagh Records founder and Guinness heir Garech Browne.

Prior to the programme, Hurt had harboured a love of Ireland and was enamoured of a "deeply beguiling" family legend that suggested his great-grandmother had been the illegitimate daughter of a Marquess of Sligo.

[56] In 2012, he was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his album cover for the Beatles' Sgt.