Born in Ipswich, England to a finance officer and a classroom assistant, Sam Claflin’s first dream was to be a professional soccer player. At only 16, he shattered one of his ankles during a game of soccer with friends and realized he would have to choose another profession. Because of this, Sam decided to pursue his second dream of acting.
When a teacher at his high school saw him perform in a school play, Sam was encouraged to take up drama. He soon joined the local youth group at Norwich’s Theatre Royal. In 2006, Sam gained entry to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and graduated in 2009 with a BA in acting. While in school Sam performed in productions such as The Man of Mode, As You Like It and the musical Tommy.
Sam first debuted on screen in 2010 in the miniseries The Pillars of Earth. He went on to appear in the TV movie The Lost Future and the TV series Any Human Heart. A year later, Sam went back to his childhood roots to portray a professional soccer player in the TV movie United.
In 2011, Sam came onto the Hollywood radar after appearing in the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He portrayed Philip Swift, an attractive missionary who finds himself captured by a mermaid. A year later Sam appeared alongside Kristen Stewart as Prince William in Snow White & the Huntsman. More recently, he starred in The Quiet Ones (2014).
Sam’s biggest role to date is as Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Starring alongside big Hollywood names such as Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, and Josh Hutcherson, Sam will also appear in both of the final movies of the series, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and 2.