James Anthony "Jim" Sturgess (born 16 May 1978) is an English actor and singer-songwriter. His breakthrough role was appearing as Jude in the musical romance drama film Across the Universe (2007). In 2008, he played the male lead role of Ben Campbell in 21. In 2009, he played Gavin Kossef in the crime drama Crossing Over, appearing with Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd. In 2010, Sturgess starred in the film, The Way Back, directed by Peter Weir. Sturgess co-starred in the German epic science fiction film Cloud Atlas, which began filming in September 2011 and was released in October 2012.

Biography

Sturgess was born in Wandsworth, London, but grew up in Farnham, Surrey, where he attended Frensham Heights School. He spent most of his youth skateboarding around his local car parks and started his first band as early as 15 years old where they would rehearse in the garage of his friend's dad's house. The band would also play gigs in and around his local area to any publican that would turn a blind eye to the fact that they were all under age. Sturgess's first acting experience came when the local theatre group came to his school looking for kids to audition for the local play. Quickly realising that he would be able to miss school, he went along to the audition and landed one of the parts in the play. It was clear to both his school and his parents that he had a natural talent, but it was always music rather than acting that was at the forefront of his mind.

Sturgess moved to Manchester to attend Salford University hoping it would enable him to start another band and hang around the Manchester music scene, where most of his music idols were from. In Manchester, he fell in with a group of aspiring actors and filmmakers, and his passion for acting was re-ignited. He started to write and perform his own short films and plays. While performing his one-person show 'BUZZIN', based around his performance poetry, Jim was discovered by an acting agent. He graduated from the University of Salford in 1999 with an HND in Media and Performance.

In 2014 it was revealed that Sturgess was dating Cloud Atlas co-star Bae Doona. However, they broke up in March of 2015.

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