Jared Harris
The actor who plays Valery Legasov in the miniseries.
Last updated
Jared Harris is the English actor who plays Valery Legasov, the lead role in the miniseries Chernobyl. Born on 24 August 1961, he is the son of the actor Richard Harris. His performance won him the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor and brought nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Last updated 2026-09-29 from the source article.
Lore & Background
Harris studied drama at Duke University and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and began his career in stage productions of Shakespeare in London and New York. He made his film debut in The Rachel Papers in 1989 and played Andy Warhol in I Shot Andy Warhol in 1996.
On television he drew critical attention as Lane Pryce in Mad Men, a part that earned him an Emmy nomination, and he went on to play King George VI in The Crown and Captain Francis Crozier in The Terror. Since 2021 he has had the leading role of Hari Seldon in Foundation.
Reader's Guide
He took the role of Legasov in 2019. The series, produced by HBO in the United States and Sky UK in the United Kingdom, revolves around the disaster of 1986 and the clean-up that followed. Harris was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and for a Golden Globe for the part, and he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor.
His other accolades include a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Elsewhere in Chernobyl: The HBO Miniseries
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Jared Harris (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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