Scottish actor and director Peter Mullan is a rare talent, and has blown me away in several productions! He recently played the deceased father/clan leader in Outlander: Blood of my Blood, and it reminded me of how happy I was to see him on screen.
There’s a few productions that I can’t find images of Mullan in:
- Willy in Encounters: “Opium Eater” (1993)
- Barry in Bogwoman (1997)
- Sanders Sr. in The Longest Memory (1997)
- Sergeant Farmer in FairyTale: A True Story (1997)
- Harris Hamilton in Stone of Destiny (2008)
Otherwise, let’s do this!
Veteran in Braveheart (1995)
Mullan had a bit part as a soldier in the Mel Gibson film about the First Scottish War of Independence in the 1290s.
Jean in Miss Julie (1999)
The first production in which Mullan blew me away: an adaptation of an 1888 Strindberg stage play about a rich woman’s interchanges with a servant on one night.
Daniel Dillon in The Claim (2000)
It’s not a perfect film, but Mullan’s performance as the father who sold his wife and daughter, and now the chickens come home to roost, in 1860s California is chilling. It’s a resetting of Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Mr O’Connor in The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
Mullan directed this film about three Irish women who, in the 1960s, are sent to a “Magdalene asylum” because they’re “fallen” — as so many young Irish women were for decades. I believe his on-screen role is small.
Odoacer in The Last Legion (2007)
A feature film that combines history of Romans in Britain and the King Arthur legends. Odoacer was a real-life Roman soldier originally from central Europe.
Ted Narracott in War Horse (2011)
An adaptation of a novel and play about a boy enlisting in the army during World War I.
Sitacles in Hercules (2014)
The Rock as the legendary Greek hero; Mullan plays an army general.
John Guthrie in Sunset Song (2015)
“The daughter of a Scottish farmer comes of age in the early 1900s” per IMDB.
Tom Morris in Tommy’s Honour (2016)
A feature film about the “lives and careers of, and the complex relationship between, the pioneering Scottish golfing champions Old Tom Morris [1821-1908, Mullan] and his son Young Tom Morris” per Wikipedia.
Lt. Col. Ross McCowan in Hostiles (2017)
“In 1892, a legendary Army captain reluctantly agrees to escort a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous territory” (IMDB). I could NOT find images of Mullan in this, and it’s been too long since I saw it, so I literally went through screencaps. I THINK this is him?
Father Henry Garnet in Gunpowder (2017)
A miniseries about the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Garnet was a Jesuit priest who knew about the plot.
Thomas in The Vanishing (2018)
A film based on the real-life disappearance of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse (Scotland) crew. It’s a fascinating true story, but I can tell that this movie would make me stick a fork in my eye.
Ridgeway Senior in The Underground Railroad (2021)
A TV series about people trying to escape slavery in the pre-Civil War American South.
Priest in The North Water (2021)
“A disgraced former military doctor embarks as a surgeon aboard a whaler bound for the Arctic, where his quest for redemption becomes a fight for survival” per IMDB.
Red Jacob MacKenzie in Outlander: Blood of My Blood (2025- )
He plays Ellen MacKenzie’s dead and beloved father in many flashbacks in this Outlander prequel set around the 1715 Scottish Jacobite Rising.
Which is your favorite of Peter Mullan’s many historical film roles?
Thomas Brodie Sangster has indeed been in everything! It looks like his first screen appearance was as a Victorian orphan when he was about 11, and he’s been showing up in frock flicks ever since. Any chance we’ll be seeing a Man Candy Monday for him soon?
I just checked and couldn’t believe he’s 35! He hasn’t really aged very much since his teens.
I’ve thought about it! I’m sure we’ll get to him :)
I second this! He is a good representative for millienials/ gen z
He directed ‘Magdalene’ – amazing sad and haunting movie.
Since you’ve mentioned it here…any possibility of you doing The North Water? It’s one of my favorites, and was shamefully overlooked when it came out; by rights there should have been all kinds of Emmy nominations in both acting and craft categories (the cinematography was absolutely stunning, and close-to-if-not-actual career best work from Jack O’Connell and especially Colin Farrell as, if not the devil himself, at least lives in the same neighborhood. I think the costumes were accurate, although 1850s/60s men’s clothing isn’t an area I’ve studied much, and, seeing as the cast is almost entirely male, you won’t have to deal with missing hairpins!
The lack of missing hairpins sounds attractive! We’d need a guest reviewer, I think, who specializes in menswear. If you can find someone who wants to review it, we’d run it!
I’d bet money that the saluting chap under HOSTILES is actually Mr Stephen Lang as Colonel Abraham Biggs*, but otherwise this article does an excellent job of highlighting the equally-excellent Mr Mullen and his body of work.
One should admit that “Liv Tyler looks good” made me chuckle a little, given my instinctive response was “Always and forever,
now any thoughts about the costume?”.😉
*Amusingly Mr Lang has the unusual distinction of playing Arch-Emancipationist John Brown and Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson, so I suspect he qualifies for an FROCK FLICKS article in his own right.