About Ian McDiarmid
Ian McDiarmid ( mək-DUR-mid; born 11 August 1944) is a Scottish actor and director of stage and screen. Making his stage debut in Hamlet in 1972, McDiarmid joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974, and has since starred in a number of William Shakespeare's plays. He has received an Olivier Award for Best Actor for Insignificance (1982) and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for Faith Healer (2006). He gained prominence for portraying Palpatine in the Star Wars franchise starting from Return of the Jedi (1983). He also acted in Gorky Park (1983), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), Restoration (1995), Sleepy Hollow (1999) and The Lost City of Z (2016). == Early life == McDiarmid was born in Carnoustie, Angus, Scotland, on 11 August 1944. He became a theatre aficionado at the age of five when his father took him to see an act named Tommy Morgan at a theatre in Dundee. In 2004 he said, "It sort of fascinated me, and it also scared me. All those lights, all that make-up. I said to myself, 'I don't know what this is, but I want it.'" However, fearing his father's disapproval, McDiarmid attended Queen's College, Dundee (now the University of Dundee, but then a constituent part of the University of St Andrews), where he received a Master of Arts in psychology.
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