Jonathan Bailey

Bailey came out privately to friends and family in his early 20s and publicly in 2018. He has spoken about the importance of LGBTQ+ visibility and representation while keeping much of his personal life private.

He resides in Hove, East Sussex. He is an avid cyclist and has competed in marathons and triathlons, as well as taking part in paddleboarding and mountaineering. In 2018, he hiked to Everest Base Camp in Nepal.

Jonathan Stuart Bailey was born in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, and grew up in nearby Benson and Brightwell-cum-Sotwell. His mother, Carole, worked as an audiologist, while his father, Stuart Bailey, was managing director of Rowse Honey. He has three older sisters and is the only boy among the four siblings.

Bailey decided to become an actor at five after his grandmother took him to see Oliver! in London. His first stage appearance was as a raindrop in a primary school production of Noah's Ark. He attended Benson Primary School, The Oratory School and Magdalen College School, Oxford, where he held a music scholarship and played piano and clarinet.

Through a dance club in Henley-on-Thames, Bailey auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1995 production of A Christmas Carol. He made his professional stage debut at seven, alternating the roles of Tiny Tim and Young Scrooge at London's Barbican Theatre. The following year, he appeared in the RSC production of Les Enfants du Paradis, and by eight he was playing Gavroche in the West End production of Les Misérables.

Bailey made his television debut in the 1996 Victorian drama Bramwell and his feature-film debut in Five Children and It in 2004. He later appeared in Beautiful Thing, Doctors, The Bill and the BBC sitcom Off the Hook, where he played Danny Gordon.

His early television leading roles included Leonardo da Vinci in the CBBC series Leonardo and Flatpack in the sitcom Campus. He also played Tom Mason in the musical-comedy series Groove High, performing both the live-action role and the voice of its animated counterpart.

Bailey became widely recognised in Britain as local journalist Olly Stevens in ITV's crime drama Broadchurch. His other television work during this period included Jack Patterson in W1A, Sam in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Crashing, and Psi in the Doctor Who episode "Time Heist".

On stage, he played Cassio in Nicholas Hytner's 2013 production of Othello at the National Theatre. Hytner also directed Bailey in National Theatre Live: 50 Years on Stage, in which he played Valentine Coverly from Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. Bailey later appeared alongside Ian McKellen in King Lear at Chichester Festival Theatre and played the lead role in The York Realist.

Bailey originated the role of Tim Price in the Almeida Theatre production of American Psycho and starred as Jamie in the 2016 London revival of Jason Robert Brown's musical The Last Five Years.

In the 2018 West End revival of Stephen Sondheim's Company, directed by Marianne Elliott, Bailey originated the gender-swapped role of Jamie, which had originally been written as Amy. His performance of the song "Getting Married Today" became one of the production's most noted sequences.

Bailey won the 2019 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for Company. He later reunited with Elliott for the 2022 West End revival of Mike Bartlett's play Cock.

Bailey has played Lord Anthony Bridgerton, the eldest Bridgerton sibling and ninth Viscount Bridgerton, in the Netflix period romance series Bridgerton since 2020. The second series centred on Anthony's story and became Netflix's most watched English-language television series at the time.

In 2023, Bailey starred opposite Matt Bomer in the Showtime miniseries Fellow Travelers, playing Tim Laughlin. His performance won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie and earned him a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

He also appeared as Jack Maddox in the third series of Heartstopper in 2024. In video games, he has voiced G'raha Tia in Final Fantasy XIV expansions including Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker and Dawntrail.

Bailey played Fiyero in the musical fantasy film Wicked and reprised the role in Wicked: For Good. He contributed to the soundtrack with "Dancing Through Life", which entered the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 86.

He starred as Dr. Henry Loomis in the science-fiction film Jurassic World Rebirth. The film also marked a musical contribution from Bailey, who played clarinet on tracks used in the film.

Bailey played Richard II in Nicholas Hytner's 2025 Bridge Theatre production of Shakespeare's Richard II and received an Evening Standard Theatre Award nomination for the performance. He is scheduled to star in Marianne Elliott's production of Sunday in the Park with George at London's Barbican Theatre.

Bailey has supported LGBTQ+ causes through fundraising and public advocacy. In 2019, he took part in the National Three Peaks Challenge to raise money for the Scottish branch of the Motor Neurone Disease Association. In 2024, he ran the Hackney Half Marathon for Just Like Us, an LGBTQ+ youth charity of which he is a patron.

In 2024, Bailey founded The Shameless Fund, a charity intended to help members of the queer community live freely and authentically. Its first collaboration was with fashion brand Loewe, and a later collaboration with eyewear brand Cubitts supported the charity.