Mark Griffin

Mark David Charles Griffin is an English actor, writer, athlete, and former bodybuilder known in the 1990's as Trojan on the British television series Gladiators from 1993-1997. Born in Hampshire and raised by his parents in Basingstoke, his mother was a housewife and his father represented The Royal Insurance at the EEC. Mark represented his county in athletics and rugby, was the Hampshire junior county squash champion and at 18 became a member of the National Squad. At twenty two he entered his first bodybuilding competition in Hackney, London; "Stars of Tomorrow" and qualified for the British Championships. It was when he was training for the National Finals that he was chosen by Nigel Lythgoe to join a new television series in the UK called Gladiators. Mark competed for five years with the show on ITV, and went on to appear in numerous television and chat shows, pantomimes and made hundreds of personal appearances at charitable events throughout the country. After five years of battling on Saturday night's prime time he was cast by Kate Plantin in Disney's new television series "Action Man" named after Hasbro's best-selling toy. The series filmed in California and Florida at Universal Studios and in 1996 Mark moved to Los Angeles. He studied Meisner with Elizabeth Mestnik in L.A. for three years and then joined her theatre company and was cast in his first Los Angeles show at the Elephant Theatre off Santa Monica Blvd & Vine. Called "The Apology", it was written by fellow alumni Christopher Wood and starred Christopher, Mark and Elizabeth Mestnik herself and went on to receive the Critic's Pick of the week from the L.A. Times. Mark then studied with Steve Eastin at the Toluca Lake Studios and during this time appeared in numerous U.S. network television series and films. On his return to England in 2011 he went on to play a variety of diverse roles in Dr. Who, The Smoke, Strike Back, Obsession and became a founding member of the Two Shillings & Sixpence Theatre Company which performs three to four shows a year in Richmond and raises money for local charities. Some of his theatre credits include; Andy and Jimmy in Simon Stephen's Bluebird & Jonathan in Simon Stephen's Wastewater at The Tabard Theatre in Chiswick, David in Joe Wenbourne's Broken Strings at the Victoria Theatre, & Wenbourne's Touching The Blue at the Edinburgh Festival, Kurt in Neil Labute's A second of Pleasure, Phil in David Rabe's Those The River Keeps, Simon in Alexi Kaye Campbell's Apologia, all in Richmond, and most recently Matt Lacey in Selina Giles's The Two Faces Of Agent Lacey at the Above The Arts theatre in Leicester Square. In 2016 he played the character of Frost in the film Vengeance by Ross Boyask and Evolutionary Films, and worked with director Steve Kelly on Bromley Boys. Since then, he and Steve have collaborated on the script Final Breath that is slated for an Autumn 2017 shoot. He was married to Heidi Santelli in Los Angeles in 2001 but they divorced in 2010. Show less «