British actor Antonio Aakeel is best known for his leading role in Eaten by Lions (2018) for which he was named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow. He was born in Wolverhampton, England, and moved around the West Midlands as a child where he honed his craft in local theatre. After graduating with First-class honours in English he turned down an offer to attend the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in favour of leading a national theatre tour of Guantanamo Boy. Antonio won his small screen debut in the BAFTA award-winning drama series Skins (2007) after applying to a nationwide campaign seeking new acting talent. This was closely followed by roles in Independent features and Television including a leading role in the critically acclaimed BBC One Drama Moving On: Eighteen (2016), which won Best Daytime programme at the Royal Television Society Awards in 2018. He's gained several film roles and was cast as Nitin alongside Oscar winner Alicia Vikander in Warner Bros' Tomb Raider (2018) reboot, establishing himself as one of Britain's fast emerging talents. He was seen opposite Riz Ahmed and Billie Piper in the noir inspired thriller City of Tiny Lights (2016) directed by BAFTA-winner Pete Travis. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2016. In 2017, Aakeel played troubled brother to Suraj Sharma in Film London's Shakespearean feature adaptation The Hungry (2017); a dark retelling of Titus Andronicus for Amazon, directed by Bornila Chatterjee. He was cast in his first leading film role as Omar in Eaten by Lions (2018) playing a young man in search of his estranged father. The film premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival and won Best Feature at the London Indian Film Festival. Aakeel will play Rafe, a series regular in BBC One's eight part drama The Dublin Murders directed by Saul Dibb. He next leads the upcoming feature Granada Nights as Ben, an uncultured British-tourist struggling to overcome heartbreak in the Spanish province. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
