Biography

Spent four months as a cattle herder in Argentina trying to be "different". Afterward, he enrolled at Dublin's Trinity College, graduating in 1993 with a B.A. in English Literature.

Was one of seven children (five girls, two boys) born to George and actress Moya (Cleary) West. His parents divorced in 1996.

He has five children: his eldest daughter, Martha West with Polly Astor; and daughters Dora and Christabel and two sons, Senan and Francis, with wife Catherine FitzGerald.

His maternal grandparents were Irish, and his paternal grandparents were English and Irish.

Dominic West portrayed late author George MacDonald Fraser's Victorian anti-hero Harry Flashman, the main character of Fraser's "Flashman" novels, at an auction of Fraser's library. West also stated at the time that he would like to see a new Flashman movie made for the new generation. The only previous movie, Royal Flash (1975), was not a success, and was so disliked by Fraser that he would not allow another one to be made in his lifetime.

I don't know why British actors are getting big parts in American TV shows. Maybe it's because we're cheap.

I went to America to get away from constantly being cast in costume dramas, playing posh people. It's interesting that I've been cast as a working-class cop [The Wire (2002)] because I doubt that would happen at home. The films I most enjoy in England are by Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, but it's very unlikely I would be cast in them; I've tried a few times, but I'm perceived as posh.

[on The Wire (2002)] The show provokes a kind of obsessive following. Those who love it kind of cherish the fact that it's not quite as world-renowned as The Sopranos (1999). It's like being in a secret club.

[on working with Julia Roberts on Mona Lisa Smile (2003)] The movie didn't make much sense. We would be given new scenes to film out of the blue which, it transpired, had been written by Julia's agent, who was doubling as a producer. I don't know what anyone was doing there. No one seemed to enjoy it. Especially not Julia. She had just got married and just wanted to be off having sex with her husband. Trouble was, she had married the cameraman on the movie. You can't really relax in a sex scene when the husband is staring right at you.

If you turn on American TV, there's a huge choice of nothing you want to see and, unfortunately, I think that's the case here now as well. I love costume drama, no-one does it like the BBC - no-one has the money to do it, first of all and, secondly, Americans don't have the history to do it. So we do it brilliantly but if you talk to any BBC producers, they abhor the fact... they're dying to do The Wire (2002) and hate doing Cranford (2007) . I thought Cranford (2007) was incredible but we don't seem to be able to do contemporary stuff.