John Ronald Simm was born on 10th July 1970 in Leeds, West Yorkshire. He is probably best known for his role as Sam Tyler in the BBC detective drama Life on Mars, in which he played a Manchester police officer who is apparently sent back in time to 1973 following a car accident. He also appeared as the latest incarnation of the Master in Doctor Who.
John grew up in Nelson, Lancashire. His father was a local musician who taught him to play guitar. He would join his father on stage in the working men’s clubs playing the guitar, he made his debut singing Elvis's Wooden Heart, and they called themselves 'Us2'.
In 1986 and at the age of 16, John went to Blackpool Drama College for three years, and starred in West Side Story. He then attended the Drama Centre in London at the age of 18, where he studied the Stanislavski School of method acting.
In the 1990s, the band in which John played guitar, Magic Alex (named after The Beatles’ electrician) toured with Echo and the Bunnymen on two tours, and also sang backing vocals on an album by Echo and the Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch. He also made his TV debut in 1992 with a role in the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey.
In the 1990s, the band in which John played guitar, Magic Alex (named after The Beatles’ electrician) toured with Echo and the Bunnymen on two tours, and also sang backing vocals on an album by Echo and the Bunnymen singer Ian McCulloch. He also made his TV debut in 1992 with a role in the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey.
In 1995, John played the troubled teenager Bill Nash in Jimmy McGovern’s acclaimed ITV police drama, Cracker. He also starred in Boston Kickout and won the Best Actor award at the Valencia Film Festival.
In 1997, he starred in the first series of the critically acclaimed and often controversial The Lakes, a BBC series written by Jimmy McGovern. In 1999, he starred in the second series of The Lakes as well as appearing in Human Traffic and Wonderland.
In 2000, he starred in the opening episode of the acclaimed drama Clocking Off written by Paul Abbott, with whom he would later work on the award-winning political thriller series State of Play.
In 2002, John featured in the film 24 Hour Party People as enigmatic New Order frontman Barney Sumner. At a live concert the same year, he sang "Digital" onstage with New Order. It was also this year that he played Raskolnikov in the BBC adaptation of his favourite book, Crime and Punishment.
In 2004 he played a researcher and investigator for a charity in a Channel 4 drama Sex Traffic, the hard hitting drama that follows the plight of two young Moldovan sisters sold into sexual slavery.
John starred as DI Sam Tyler in two series of Life on Mars The show won the Pioneer Audience Award for Best Programme at the 2007 BAFTA TV Awards, although John lost out on the award for Best Actor
In March 2007, he appeared on Channel 4 in The Yellow House, a biographical drama produced by talkback THAMES about the lives of artists Vincent van Gogh (John) and Paul Gaugin (John Lynch).
John recently returned to the theatre as the title character in Paul Miller’s acclaimed Bush Theatre staging of Simon Bent’s version of Elling, a comedy about two men just out of mental hospital adjusting to 'normal life' and each other. Following excellent press reviews the production was transferred to the Trafalgar Studios in July 2007 for an extended West End run.
John joined the 2007 series of Doctor Who as the Master, a recurring enemy of the Doctor.
He will reunite with his Life on Mars co-star Philip Glenister — with whom he also appeared in Clocking Off and State of Play — in the forthcoming 1980s-set crime film Tuesday, in which the pair play bank robbers. Upon the announcement of the film, Glenister joked that he and John were contractually obliged to work with each other once a year.
John’s current project is Seven Days, a Channel 4 drama with Michael Winterbottom, which will take five years to make. Charting the experiences of a UK prison inmate (John) and his relationship with his wife (Shirley Henderson) and four children in the outside world, it will not be seen on television until at least 2012.
Another series of State of Play may be in the wind, and the door is open for John to reprise his role as the Master in Doctor Who - as he says “you can do absolutely anything in Doctor Who”.
Details from Wikipedia, with thanks.