Peter Mullan (/ˈmʊlən/; born 2 November 1959) is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his role in Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe (1998), The Claim (2000), and all three series of the BBC comedy series Mum, in which he starred as Michael.

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Quick Facts Born, Occupations ...

Peter Mullan
Mullan in 2005
Born	(1959-11-02) 2 November 1959 (age 64) Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Occupations	Actor filmmaker
Years active	1988–present
Spouse	Ann Swan ​ ​ (m. 1989; div. 2006)​
Children	4

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He won a Golden Lion at 59th Venice International Film Festival for his direction of The Magdalene Sisters in 2002.

Mullan was born on 2 November 1959 in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of Patricia (a nurse) and Charles Mullan (a lab technician at Glasgow University).^[1][2] The seventh of eight children, Mullan was brought up in a working class Roman Catholic family.^[3][4] They later moved to Mosspark,^[5] a district in Glasgow. An alcoholic, Mullan's father became increasingly tyrannical and abusive; he died from lung cancer when Mullan was 17.^[6]

For a brief period, Mullan was a member of a street gang while at secondary school,^[6][7] and worked as a bouncer in a number of south-side pubs.^[8] He was homeless for short periods at the ages of 15 and 18.^[9]

Mullan went on to the University of Glasgow to study economic history and drama, where he began acting on stage.^[10]

Mullan married Ann Swan, an actress and scriptwriter, in 1989; they divorced in 2006. He has four children – three with Swan including one son with autism and one with former girlfriend, activist Robina Qureshi.^[12]

A self-described Marxist,^[6] Mullan continues to support socialist causes and was a leading figure in the left-wing theatre movement that blossomed in Scotland during the Margaret Thatcher and John Major Conservative governments in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s. These included stints with the 7:84 and Wildcat Theatre companies. An outspoken critic of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s New Labour governments, he told The Guardian "the TUC and the Labour Party sold us [the working class] out big style, unashamedly so".^[13] Ahead of the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, Mullan pledged support for the new Scottish Socialist Party and their leader Tommy Sheridan. Mullan took part in a 2006 occupation of the Glasgow offices of the UK Immigration Service, protesting against the UKIS's "dawn raid" tactics when deporting failed asylum seekers.^[14]

In January 2009, Mullan joined other actors in protesting against the BBC's refusal to screen a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza. They told BBC director general Mark Thompson: "Like millions of others, we are absolutely appalled at the decision to refuse to broadcast the appeal. We will never work for the BBC again unless this disgraceful decision is reversed. We will urge others from our profession and beyond to do likewise."^[15] Mullan has agreed to appear in an adaptation of Iain Banks's novel Stonemouth after the BBC aired a DEC appeal for Gaza in late 2014.^[16]

Mullan was a supporter of the Yes Scotland campaign in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.^[17] In 2015, he criticised the BBC for "horrendous bias" against the Yes campaign and told the Radio Times that "to see the BBC used as a political cudgel against a legitimate democratic movement ... really broke my heart."^[18]