Regé-Jean Page

Regé-Jean Page () is a British actor known for his role in the first series of Netflix's period drama Bridgerton in 2020. He has also appeared in the series Waterloo Road (2015) on BBC One, Roots (2016) on History, and For the People (2018–2019) on ABC, and has since had roles in the action film The Gray Man (2022), the spy caper Black Bag (2025) and the fantasy film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023).

Early life and education

Regé-Jean Page was born to an English preacher and a Zimbabwean nurse in London, England. He has a brother, Tose Page, and was once in a band with him. They also worked together as a duo named Tunya. He spent his childhood in his mother's native Harare before moving to London for secondary school, where he took up acting as a hobby and studied sound engineering at the Northern Technical College. After two years of auditioning, he matriculated at Drama Centre London.

Career

Page's first acting role was in 2001 playing Tanaka in television series Gimme 6. This was followed by guest appearances in British television series Casualty@Holby City in 2005, Fresh Meat in 2013, and Waterloo Road in 2015. On stage, he had roles in theatre productions of The History Boys in 2013, and The Merchant of Venice in 2015. Page made his American production debut playing the role of Chicken George in the History Channel miniseries Roots in 2016, a remake of the 1977 miniseries with the same name which is based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The same year, Page filmed an unaired pilot episode for ABC's Spark.

In 2017, he was cast in a supporting role in the Shondaland-produced legal drama For the People which ran for two seasons, before getting cancelled by ABC in 2019. On film, he had minor roles in the post-apocalyptic film Mortal Engines in 2018 and drama film Sylvie's Love in 2020.

In 2019, Page was cast as one of the leads in the first series of Netflix period drama Bridgerton, another Shondaland project. It is based on the Regency romance novel The Duke and I and was released in December 2020. The show was a critical success and Page received an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, with Time magazine including him in their 100 Next List in 2021. He was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy for the role. Page did not return for the show's second series despite being offered to come back as he initially only signed a one-series deal, and wanted to explore other opportunities outside the show.

In 2022, Page appeared in Netflix's film The Gray Man which received mixed reviews. David Ehrlich of IndieWire described Page as "miserable in the role of a gallingly basic villain", with the BBC's Nicholas Barber calling his performance "one-dimensionally evil". The same year, he was made the face of Armani Code. Page played a character in the fantasy film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) which received positive reviews but was deemed a "box-office bomb".