Thewlis portrayed Ares in Wonder Woman (2017), the DC Comics film featuring the character of the same name. He briefly reprised his role as Ares in Justice League (2017). That same year, he appeared as V. M. Varga, the main antagonist of the third season of Fargo. His performance was critically acclaimed, and earned him nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries, and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

Thewlis married his second wife, a French artist whose name has not been publicly revealed, in 2017. They live in Sunningdale, Berkshire. He also owns a converted Victorian ballroom in the London district of Clerkenwell.

In June 2015, Thewlis was reported to be filming scenes for a Donald Crowhurst biopic, The Mercy, on the beach at Teignmouth, Devon, playing Donald Crowhurst’s press agent, Rodney Hallworth, while Colin Firth is playing Donald Crowhurst. He also starred in Regression, a thriller released in autumn 2015. In September 2015, Thewlis starred as Inspector Goole in Helen Edmundson’s BBC TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. In October 2015, he played King Duncan in the film Macbeth.

Thewlis played the late Dr. Michael Aris, husband of Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, with Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh as Suu Kyi, in the biopic The Lady directed by Luc Besson. In 2012, he received an International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera Award. In the same year, he also played in Separate We Come, Separate We Go, directed by Harry Potter co-star Bonnie Wright.

Thewlis’ debut novel, The Late Hector Kipling, is a black comedy set in the art world and was published by Simon & Schuster in 2007.

He appeared as an SS Commandant of a Nazi death camp and father of the main character in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which was well received. Other credits include Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Terrence Malick’s The New World (2005), and The Omen (2006).

He auditioned for the role of Quirinus Quirrell in the Chris Columbus directed film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, but the part went to Ian Hart. Despite missing out on the first film, he was cast in 2004 as Professor Remus Lupin in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He did not have to audition as he was director Alfonso Cuarón’s first choice for the role. Thewlis reprised the role in four other films in the series.

On television, Thewlis portrayed Cyrus Crabb in the ABC miniseries Dinotopia (2002) and V. M. Varga in the third season of Fargo (2017), with the latter earning him nominations for an Emmy Award, Critics’ Choice Television Award, and Golden Globe Award. He provides the voice of the Shame Wizard in the Netflix animated sitcom Big Mouth (2017–present).

Thewlis directed Hello, Hello, Hello in 1995, for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Short Film. He also wrote, directed and starred in the feature Cheeky (2003).

Thewlis rose to prominence for starring in the film Naked (1993), for which he won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor. His most commercially successful roles to date have been Remus Lupin in the Harry Potter film series (2004–2011) and Sir Patrick Morgan / Ares in Wonder Woman (2017). Other notable film appearances include Dragonheart (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), War Horse (2011), The Theory of Everything (2014), and Anomalisa (2015). He will appear in Avatar 2 (2021) and Avatar 3 (2023).

Thewlis’s breakout role was Naked (1993; dir. Mike Leigh), as the main character, Johnny, a homeless, highly intelligent, embittered, rambling street philosopher, for which Thewlis was named Best Actor by the National Society of Film Critics (United States), the London Film Critics Circle, the Evening Standard, the New York Film Critics’ Circle and the Cannes Film Festival. That same year, he appeared on television as a sexual predator named James Jackson in Prime Suspect 3, opposite Helen Mirren and Ciarán Hinds. Before that, his first television appearance was in Valentine Park.

Thewlis married Welsh actress Sara Sugarman in 1992, and they divorced in 1994. He then had a brief relationship with English actress Kate Hardie. In 2001, he began a relationship with English actress Anna Friel. Their daughter, actress Gracie, was born in 2005. Thewlis and Friel split up in late 2010.

During the 1990s, Thewlis appeared in a variety of films, mostly fantasy and period, including Restoration (1995), Black Beauty (1994), Total Eclipse (1995) with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Dragonheart (1996), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997), opposite Brad Pitt. He was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for Divorcing Jack (1998), and played Clov in a television film of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (2000). Notable appearances also include Bernardo Bertolucci’s Besieged (1998) and Paul McGuigan’s Gangster No. 1 (2000), opposite Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell.

Thewlis had a minor role in an episode of the 1980s sitcom Up the Elephant and Round the Castle. He also appeared in an episode of popular sitcom Only Fools and Horses (1985) as a friend of Rodney. His first professional role was in the play Buddy Holly at the Regal in Greenwich.

David Wheeler (born 20 March 1963), known professionally as David Thewlis, is an English actor, director, screenwriter, and author.

Thewlis was born David Wheeler in Blackpool on 20 March 1963, the second of three children of Maureen (née Thewlis) and Alec Raymond Wheeler. Both parents worked at his father’s shop. As a teenager, he played in a rock band called QED and played lead guitar with a punk rock band called Door 66. He was educated at Highfield High School in Blackpool’s Marton area. He later enrolled in the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, graduating in 1984.