Get the Lowdown on The Gold’s Jack Lowden
He may play a calculating criminal in The Gold on MASTERPIECE on PBS, but don’t be fooled — off-screen, actor Jack Lowden is quite the opposite. Learn some fun facts about the award-winning actor below, including where he hails from, a lifelong idol of his and his childhood quirk emulating them; a recent, trending, and daring passion of his; and the work he’s been hailed for, including five seasons (and counting!) of the critically acclaimed thriller series Slow Horses, and more.
- 1.
He's a Scotsman
Whether from his role as the devious Kenneth Noye, as British secret agent River Cartwright in the thriller series Slow Horses, you may think Lowden is British — but you’d be wrong! The proudly Scottish actor was born in England, but his parents soon returned the family back to Scotland, where Jack and his brother grew up.
“I very rarely get to use [my Scottish accent],” Lowden told Graham Norton in 2023. But when he does have a chance to use his true accent, he likes to have some fun with it, even in his day-to-day life. “I’ve actually gotten bored of having to repeat myself,” he explained, describing how he’ll occasionally go into a shop, “say something whimsical at first” to see if they’ll ask him to repeat himself — which they often do. “I purposely try to…see what I can get away with because they’re never going to understand.”
- 2.
He's a Big Frank Sinatra Fan
In the same interview with The Guardian, Lowden also revealed one of his longtime idols to be none other than legendary crooner Frank Sinatra — stemming as far back as his childhood, as he recalled. “I used to, when I was really young, get a whiskey glass and put ice and Diet Coke in it, and sit with it, pretending it was a scotch, just listening to Frank Sinatra on my own,” he confessed.
The singer even inspired Lowden’s method of acting. “What I love about Frank Sinatra – and it took me years to work this out – is the same thing I love about acting: it’s rhythm… I’ll read a script and if the rhythm is enjoyable, if it feels like music, that’s what really excites me. And Sinatra had this incredible ability to sing these very, very famous songs, but almost every time he sung them he would bend the rhythm ever so slightly. Fantastic.”
- 3.
You May Have Heard of His Wife, Too!
In 2017, Lowden scored a role that would change everything — the role of Lord Darnley, the second husband of Queen Mary, in Mary Queen of Scots, opposite Irish actress Saoirse Ronan as the titular royal…and, unbeknownst to him at the time, his future wife.
“There was me at 27 thinking about stopping because I felt self-conscious or like I didn’t know how to do it,” Lowden said in a 2025 interview with The Times. “And then watching this 23-year-old carry the weight of a huge film like that with ease and grace and majesty,” he said of his now-wife, Ronan, whom he married in 2024. “It was remarkable to watch. She makes it look so easy, like breathing. It was totally inspiring.”
- 4.
He's Got a Passion for Swimming
…and not just any kind of swimming, either! The actor and his now wife, Ronan, found a passion for “wild swimming” — a growing, popular trend of swimming in the great outdoors, particularly in freezing temperatures — after working on The Outrun, which was based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by Amy Liptrot.
After reading Liptrot’s story, the actor found himself giving wild swimming a try off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. “Beforehand you’re hoping that you trip over and can’t go through with it,” he explained to Vogue in a 2022 interview. “Then you come out and you just wanna hug and kiss people.” (However, he also admitted his determination not to become “‘one of those annoying people’ who bang on about it.”)
- 5.
He's Not the Only Famous Member of His Family
Lowden may be the only professional actor in his family, but he’s certainly not the only on-stage star — in 2021, Lowden’s younger brother Calum was officially named principal dancer at the The Royal Swedish Ballet. In fact, The Gold star credits his brother for his passion for the stage, after joining his little brother’s ballet lessons when they were younger. “I wasn’t very good,” he told Vogue in a 2022 interview. He continued on, joking that though his brother is now a professional dancer, Jack was quickly encouraged to “try words instead. But that’s how I discovered the stage. I just adore it. It feels like home.”
- 6.
He's Also Worked Behind the Camera
Lowden’s talents aren’t limited to his work on stage and in front of the camera. In recent years, he’s also taken on producing roles behind the scenes (while also starring on-screen) on a number of films: as a producer of the 2020 horror thriller Kindred, featuring fellow MASTERPIECE actors Fiona Shaw (Baptiste) and Anton Lesser (Endeavour, Wolf Hall); as executive producer on the 2021 biographical drama Benediction, for which he also won a BAFTA Scotland Award for Best Actor; and, as a producer on the 2024 drama The Outrun, alongside his award-winning wife, Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, Lady Bird, Little Women), who also starred in the film.
Lowden reflected on that particular producing endeavor in a 2024 interview with The Guardian. “I read The Outrun in lockdown and just turned to Sersh [Ronan] and said “You’ve got to play this part,’” he recalled. “It was the most amazing experience – in particular, to watch her in that role. She’s utterly phenomenal. But then the madness of making an independent film is just… great fun and terrifying. It’s a miracle any of them ever get made.”
- 7.
He's No MASTERPIECE Stranger
Eagle-eyed MASTERPIECE fans, does Lowden look familiar to you? The Gold isn’t Lowden’s first foray into the world of MASTERPIECE on PBS! Previously, Lowden was seen in Wolf Hall Season 1 as Thomas Wyatt, and in The Long Song as Robert Goodwin.
