Mackenzie Crook

Mackenzie Crook (born Paul James Crook, 29 September 1971) is an English actor, comedian, director and writer. He played Gareth Keenan in The Office, Ragetti in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Orell in the HBO series Game of Thrones, and the title role of Worzel Gummidge. He is also the creator and star of BBC Four's Detectorists (2014–2022), for which he won two BAFTA awards. He also plays major roles in TV series Britannia, as the opposite leading druids Veran and Harka. Early life Crook was born on 29 September 1971 in Maidstone, Kent, and grew up in Dartford, Kent. He is the son of Michael Crook, a British Airways employee, and Sheila Crook, a hospital manager. As a child he received a course of hormone therapy for three years to treat a growth hormone deficiency. He attended Wilmington Grammar School for Boys. In the summers, he spent time at his uncle's tobacco farm in northern Zimbabwe, where he developed his love for smoking. Career Film and television career One of Crook's earliest television appearances was in the 1998 Channel 4 sketch show Barking, as a grotesque schoolteacher called Mr. Bagshaw, who is said to be based on a variety of obnoxious, overbearing science teachers he was taught by while in school.