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Ian McShane won the 2005 Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Drama and earned Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance as the charismatic Al Swearengen in the second season of HBO's hit series Deadwood. For his work during the series' 2004 debut season, McShane received the Television Critics Association Award, with a second nomination for the 2005 season, and was named one of GQ Magazine's Men of the Year.

McShane has starred in over 25 films over a long and distinguished career, including The Battle of Britain, The Last of Sheila, Villain, co-starring Richard Burton, Exposed, and Agent Cody Banks. In Jonathan Glazer's acclaimed Sexy Beast, he gave a riveting performance as the sinister gangster Teddy Bass, opposite Sir Ben Kingsley and Ray Winstone. Recently, he joined the ensemble cast of writer-director Rodrigo Garcia's drama Nine Lives and co-starred in the Woody Allen film, Scoop. He will next lend his vocal talents to the upcoming animated feature Shrek The Third, as Captain Hook, the animated fantasy Coraline, and the animated comedy Kung Fu Panda, with an all-star voice cast including Jackie Chan. Among his upcoming screen appearances are the action comedy Hot Rod, and the thriller Case 39, opposite Renée Zellweger, both scheduled for a 2007 release. McShane has also enjoyed a long career in both British and American television, including a role in David Wolper's seminal 1970s miniseries Roots. Last season, he was seen on both BBC and BBC America's comedy series Trust. A starring turn in Whose Life Is It Anyway?, for Granada TV, the role of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights for the BBC, and Harold Pinter's Emmy-winning The Caretaker are among his other television highlights. He has also portrayed Judas in NBC's Jesus of Nazareth, directed by Franco Zeffirelli; Prince Rainer in the network's The Grace Kelly Story; and the title role in Masterpiece Theatre's Disraeli. His additional miniseries credits include Charlie the Kid, A.D., The Great Escape II, Marco Polo, Evergreen and Dan Curtis' War and Remembrance.

In the late 1980s, he formed McShane Productions, which produced the much-adored Lovejoy for the BBC and A&E, a project that gave him a vehicle in which to star as well as produce and direct. He followed by producing and starring in the lead role of Madson in the comedy drama Soul Survivors, for BBC and Showtime.

In 2000, McShane returned to London's West End for his musical stage debut in Cameron Mackintosh's successful production of The Witches of Eastwick, as Darryl Van Horne. His stage career has included roles as Hal in the original cast of Loot, the title role of The Admirable Crichton at the Chichester Festival, Tom in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie and Charlie in The Big Knife. He co-starred with Dame Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen in Promise, which successfully played London before moving to Broadway. In Los Angeles, he starred in three productions at The Matrix Theatre, including the world premiere of Larry Atlas' Yield of the Long Bond and two others for which he received the Los Angeles Drama Critics' Circle Award: Inadmissible Evidence and Betrayal.