Hugh Quarshie

Hugh Anthony Quarshie (born 22 December 1954) is a Ghanaian-born British actor of stage, television and film. Some of his best-known roles include his appearances in the films Highlander (1986), The Church (1989), Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), and the Doctor Who episodes 'Daleks in Manhattan' and 'Evolution for the Daleks' (2007) as well as his long-running role as Ric Griffin in the BBC medical drama Holby City (2001–present). Quarshie has played the role of Ric for over 15 years and is the longest serving cast member in Holby City.

Quarshie is of mixed Ghanaian, English and Dutch ancestry. He was born in Accra, Ghana, to Emma Wilhelmina (née Philips, 1917–2004) and Richard Quarshie, an African of chiefly ancestry, emigrating with his family to the United Kingdom at the age of three. He was educated at Bryanston School in Dorset and Dean Close School in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (during which time he played the role of Othello at the Tuckwell Theatre), before reading PPE at Christ Church, Oxford.

Quarshie had considered becoming a journalist before taking up acting. He is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has appeared in many stage productions and television programmes, including the serial Behaving Badly with Judi Dench. He is well known for playing the roles of Sunda Kastagir in Highlander, Captain Panaka in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, and Ric Griffin in the TV series Holby City. He attended the Star Wars fan event "Star Wars Celebration" in 1999. He portrayed Lieutenant Obutu in Wing Commander.

He appeared in the 2007 two-part Doctor Who episode "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks" as Solomon, the leader of the shanty town Hooverville. He headed the cast of Michele Soavi's The Church (1989) as Father Gus, and played Aaron the Moor in the BBC Television Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

Quarshie has also narrated for TV. His work includes the 2006 documentary Mega Falls of Iguacu (about the Iguaçu Falls), the 2009 adaptation of Small Island, and the 2010 BBC Wildlife series Great Rift: Africa's Wild Heart. In September 2010, he featured in an episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, in which he traced his Ghanaian and Dutch origins. The episode revealed one of his ancestors to be Pieter Martinus Johannes Kamerling, a Dutch official on the Gold Coast, making Quarshie a distant relative of Dutch actor Antonie Kamerling.

Quarshie is a supporter of the Women's Equality Party.

Film

Television

• Cymbeline as Posthumus (Royal Exchange, Manchester) (1984)
• The Admirable Crichton as Crichton (Royal Exchange, Manchester) (1985)
• Goethe's Faust as Mephistopheles (RSC, 1995)
• Julius Caesar as Mark Antony (RSC, 1995)
• Othello as Othello (RSC, 2015)