For Tom Cullen, acting helped curb youthful rebellion

You would never know it by his recent acting roles, but Tom Cullen was once an angry guy.

He has played the elegant Lord Gillingham, who courted Lady Mary in “Downton Abbey.” And now he’s the heroic Knight Templar in History's “Knightfall.”

How does that jibe with the dyslexic and surly teen who was kicked out of his first drama school for being a rebel?

“I was angry for lots of reasons, but mostly just being a young man in Britain,” he said. “I went through a lot when I was in my teens, and I acted out a lot."

Cullen’s parents divorced before he was born. And part of his troubled boyhood stemmed from his separation from his siblings.

“My mom had another family, my brother and sister, who I loved dearly,” he said.

“But I lived with my father, and he decided to move away from where we were. So I grew up in the mountains in Wales, in farmland. And he was moving to the capital city, Cardiff. And so I had to leave my brother and sister behind and my mum — that was a big change for me. I was 11."

The experience, he said, was more traumatic than he was aware of at the time.

"In hindsight, when I look back on it, I wish I’d grown up with them because they’re some of my best friends, my brother and sister. I just wish I’d had a closer relationship with them growing up. I think it was a lifechanging experience."

Acting, too, has been a life-changing experience for Cullen, 32, who toyed with countless other

projects before he committed to such work.

A second drama school helped him find success.

“I was in trouble all the time, but I had teachers who were very nice to me and believed in me, and eventually I calmed down and chilled out," he said,

“Acting was the thing that really saved me, I think. It gave me a real purpose and understanding of the world. They gave me that opportunity and believed in me and told me I could do it, which was always a battle inside my head — whether I could or whether I couldn’t.”

Doubts still haunt him whenever he starts a new project, though.

“I feel every role is beyond me,” Cullen said. “You just have to go for it and trust that whatever you do is OK. I think as soon as you stop trying to do things right is when you necessarily don’t get things wrong.”

Taking risks and being bold and brave are important in any art, he said, just as they are in everyday life.

“I think if you do that with integrity and honesty, I don’t think you can go wrong necessarily. You might be bad. I’ve done some bad acting and (made some) bad life choices — but it was what it was, and I’m still alive.”