Here's Where You've Seen Long Bright River’s Nicholas Pinnock Before
British actor Nicholas Pinnock takes on the role of an injured Philly cop in his latest role on Peacock's Long Bright River.
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He’s played everything from a wrongfully convicted man-turned-attorney to Jesus himself, but Nicholas Pinnock’s latest role has him immersed in the streets of Philadelphia.
The British actor plays Philly cop Truman Dawes in Peacock’s new thriller Long Bright River.
The eight-part limited series follows Dawes’ onetime partner Mickey Fitzpatrick (Amanda Seyfried) as she launches a desperate search to find her missing sister after women in their gritty Kensington neighborhood are found brutally murdered.
“I’m an audience member when I read the scripts and they come through, and I was moved by what I read ... to be part of stories that are gonna move [people] is everything for me,” Pinnock told NBC Insider of what drew him to the project.
For Pinnock, the complex role allowed him to delve deeply into what drives the character. That’s something he’s made a career of doing since he started first acting as a child.
To learn more about Pinnock’s most pivotal roles and why the veteran actor has used his fame to become a powerful mental health advocate, read on below:
When did Nicholas Pinnock begin acting?
From an early age growing up in the United Kingdom, Pinnock had his sights set on only one career.
“I knew from the age of 4 exactly what it was I wanted to do,” he told PEOPLE in 2017. “I had this dream of what my life would be like. I mean, we all have an idea of what we want our life to be like, and years later, that’s my life. It’s just f—ing awesome.”
By the age of 12, he’d landed one of his first jobs in the 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors. Although his scene never made it to the big screen, the Frank Oz-led film put him up close and personal with some big names in Hollywood.
“It was amazing,” he told the outlet. “I spent six weeks on this set just watching Rick Moranis and Steve Martin and Frank Oz, who was directing.”
What has Nicholas Pinnock been in?
It may be hard to top a pivotal moment like that, but Pinnock’s career in acting was just getting started. His first official acting credit was in the 1986 TV series Middle English and he continued to add other television and film roles in the years that followed, according to his bio on IMDB.
In 2011, Pinnock appeared in Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger as a SHIELD tech. Then, he went on to star in popular U.K. series like Top Boy, Fortitude, and Marcella before hopping back over the pond in 2018 to star in the spy thriller series Counterpart alongside J.K. Simmons. In 2020, Pinnock landed the titular role of Aaron Wallace in For Life, a drama about a man wrongfully convicted who earns a law degree to help others in his situation.
After For Life wrapped, Pinnock appeared in the TV series Django, played Jesus in The Book of Clarence, and took on the role of Deuce Williams in This Town.
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“The fact that I can connect with an audience through the performances that I deliver is my job done. Everybody likes a pat on the back from their boss, and I see the audience as who I’m doing this for,” he once told the House Collective of the way he approaches his career. “If they are happy, then it motivates me to keep going, stretch myself, grow, and strive to deliver performances that are worthy of their attention.”
Who does Nicholas Pinnock play on Long Bright River?
In his latest role on Long Bright River, Pinnock plays Truman Dawes, a Philly cop on leave after suffering an injury on the job. His character serves as a mentor to Fitzpatrick, who is juggling life as a single mom with her quest to track down her missing sister and find a killer targeting vulnerable women in the community.
He described Dawes to Mashable Benelux as a “fantastic character.”
“He has a lot of empathy and a lot of heart, and you think there’s gonna be a twist, you think there’s gonna be something not quite right about him, but he’s consistent in Mickey’s life,” he continued. “He’s the person that Mickey needed from the beginning, but showed up near the end.”
Pinnock told NBC Insider that along with being moved by a story, he also has to “be scared” to take on the challenge of bringing the character to the screen.
“I have to be really scared of the material and challenged in some way and think how the f--k can I bring Truman to life? What can I do? Will I be able to craft this in a way that’s believable, meaningful, worthy? And I still have no idea whether I was able to do it or not, but I gave it my best try," he said.
He was also eager to work alongside the talented Seyfried — who has made her own name in Hollywood through projects like the limited series The Dropout and films like Mean Girls and Mamma Mia!. He called the decision to join Seyfried on Long Bright River a “no-brainer.”
“I’ve been a fan of Amanda’s for a while, and…called all the people that I knew and said ‘OK, what’s she like?’ because, you know, I don’t want to work with any a--holes, I want to work with angels,” he told NBC Insider. “And everybody assured me that she was an absolute dream to work with.”
Nicholas Pinnock's mental health advocacy
When he isn’t on screen, Pinnock enjoys other creative pursuits like listening to music and writing poetry, something that’s helped him maintain his mental health.
“When I put my feelings down on paper, I managed to articulate them in a way that people one, could understand and two, thought was beautiful and three, had a poetry about them,” he told PEOPLE.
After his own struggle with depression, Pinnock has become a powerful mental health advocate and served as an ambassador for the mental health charity MIND. He called his work with the charity “one of my proudest achievements.”
“I think responsibility comes with fame, and although I never set out to be famous, it seems I am headed in that direction so it’s something I’m going to use to the best of my ability to help those who don’t have a voice,” he told House Collective of the work he’s done to increase awareness.
To see Pinnock and Seyfried in action together, watch Long Bright River, streaming now on Peacock.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Gomulka
