Clive Standen

Self-styled "British cowboy" Clive Standen started his career as an action star at the young age of 12 when he joined a professional stunt team in Nottingham. His early experience with horse-riding and swordplay was to prove invaluable later in his career as he went on to play Archer -- Robin Hood's swashbuckling half-brother -- in the popular BBC TV series "Robin Hood" in 2009. Not content with demonstrating his facility with a bow and arrow, Clive went on to employ his formidable swordsmanship when he played the legendary Arthurian Knight Sir Gawain in the Starz network's TV series "Camelot" in 2011. Clive's historical-action-man status ensured that he was cast in the lead role in The History Channel's "Vikings" series in 2013, as well as the lead in the Viking-Britain-set motion picture "Hammer of the Gods" the same year. Pretty impressive for an actor who had been chosen as "the face of Evian Water" in 2008. Clive was born in 1981 on a British army base in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland while his father was serving there. A few years later, his family moved to Leicestershire, where he grew up only a few miles from Nottingham: a fitting environment for a young man who was heavily influenced by his parents' love of the classic Hollywood swashbucklers of the 1930s and 40s. Clive was already a big Robin Hood fan when Kevin Costner's "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" was released in the UK and its phenomenal box-office success helped him get his first ever paid job: a live show in Sherwood Forest, staged for international tourists, in which he played the role of Little John's son, Wolf Little. "It was a brilliant experience and the perfect place to learn stunts and sword fighting," Clive later told the BBC. A keen student of martial arts, by the age of 15 Clive was also a member of The National Youth Theatre and The National Youth Music Theatre, where his teachers encouraged him to develop his theatrical talents. For years, Clive saw his future in martial arts