Acting
After graduating from university, Meadows cast Considine in several short films, as well as his second film, A Room for Romeo Brass (1999). Considine, in his screen debut, played the disturbed character Morell. Considine's performance in the film led to Paweł Pawlikowski casting him in his first starring role in Last Resort (2000). Considine played the lead role as love-struck misfit Alfie, for which he won the Best Actor award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Considine increased his profile during the early to mid-2000s with supporting and starring roles in cult films such as 24 Hour Party People and In America.
In 2004, Considine starred in what was then the most significant role of his career, as Richard in Meadows' revenge film Dead Man's Shoes (2004), a film he cowrote and for which he won the Best British Actor Award at the 2005 Empire Awards. In the same year, he starred in My Summer of Love, his second film with director Paweł Pawlikowski. Both films were recognised on the award circuit, where Considine earned five nominations and two wins. The following year, Considine played Frank Thorogood (the suspected murderer of Rolling Stones co-founder Brian Jones) in Stoned (2005). It was around this time that Considine earned his reputation as a popular portrayer of cinema villains, antiheroes, and darker characters. 2005 also saw the release of Considine's second Hollywood film, Cinderella Man.
Considine appeared in the Spanish thriller Bosque de Sombras (2006). It was during the filming of this that Considine penned what later became his debut short, Dog Altogether. Considine claims that it was his co-star Gary Oldman who gave him the confidence to make the film, which led to him thanking Oldman during his BAFTA acceptance speech. In 2006, he starred in Pu-239 as Timofey Berezin, a worker at a Russian nuclear facility who gets exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. In 2007, Considine landed roles in two popular big-budget films; the third film in the Bourne Trilogy film series, The Bourne Ultimatum, in which he played newspaper reporter Simon Ross, and Hot Fuzz, in which he had his first comedic role as DS Andy Wainwright. In 2008, Considine starred in My Zinc Bed a TV film for BBC / HBO. In 2009, he starred as Peter Hunter in the Channel 4 miniseries Red Riding: 1980, based on the novels by David Peace, and another collaboration with Meadows, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, a film which was unscripted, adlibbed, and filmed in five days at a cost of £48,000, and which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.
In 2011, Considine starred in a film adaptation of Joe Dunthorne's book Submarine, which Richard Ayoade wrote and directed. Also in 2011, Considine appeared as Porter Nash in the adaptation of the Ken Bruen novel Blitz, as well as starring as Jack Whicher in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, written by Helen Edmundson and Neil McKay. In the same year, Considine was briefly reunited with one of his A Room for Romeo Brass co-stars, BAFTA-winning actress Vicky McClure. The two shared the screen in a television advert to promote "Films for Life Season". The ad was shot over two days in Spain.
He has appeared in several music videos, most notably "God Put A Smile Upon Your Face" (2002) by Coldplay and Moloko's "Familiar Feeling" (2003), as well as the Arctic Monkeys track "Leave Before the Lights Come On" (2006), for which he wrote the video.
Considine starred in The World's End, as one of the "Five Musketeers" reattempting an "epic" pub crawl. Considine previously worked with the cast and crew on Hot Fuzz (2007). The film was released in the United Kingdom on 19 July 2013, and the United States on 23 August 2013. In August 2015, Considine confirmed that he was writing the screenplay for the film Journeyman, in which he will also star. It is an adaptation of non-fiction novel The Years of the Locust by Jon Hotten, the true story of a sociopathic boxing promoter, Fat Rick Parker, and his doomed relationship with his naive fighter, Tim Anderson. Considine is also writing a film from a ghost story called The Leaning, with plans to direct both films. He will continue to work with Shane Meadows on King of the Gypsies, a biopic of bare-knuckle fighter Bartley Gorman, whom Considine met and became friends with whilst working as a photographer. In 2015, Considine was cast along Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton in the UK zombie film in The Girl with All the Gifts, based on the 2014 novel The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey.
In April 2017, Considine made his professional stage debut in The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre, ahead of a transfer to the Gielgud Theatre in the West End. The production transferred to the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway, beginning previews on 2 October 2018. The play, which went on to win four Tony Awards, closed on 7 July 2019. For his performance as Quinn Carney, Considine gained nominations for best actor at both the Olivier Awards and The Tony Awards.
In 2020, he portrayed Mr Martin in the HBO miniseries The Third Day alongside Jude Law. In August 2022, Considine began appearing as King Viserys Targaryen in the Game of Thrones series prequel House of the Dragon. Considine will portray Brendan Ingle in the upcoming biographical sports drama Giant opposite Mena Massoud as Naseem Hamed.
