--- name: "Martin Compston" canonical: "https://film.one/person/martin-compston" roles: ["Actor"] born: "8 May 1984" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 updated: "2026-09-17T02:09:29.577982+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Martin Compston Actor. Born 8 May 1984 in Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 8 May 1984, Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland - **Active:** 2009–2012 - **Also known as:** 馬汀・康普斯頓, مارتین کامپستن, مارتین کومپستون ## Fi1m on Martin Compston > Martin Compston does less than almost anyone else on screen and lets the camera find the rest. It made DS Steve Arnott the steady centre of *Line of Duty*, and it has kept him in thrillers and procedurals ever since. Watch Steve Arnott in an interview room. Someone who outranks him is lying, and Compston barely moves: the hands stay on the folder, the mouth stays shut, and the eyes do the work. That is his whole method, and he knows it. "Sometimes people on sets will say, ‘Martin, you’re not doing very much.’ But the camera picks up every subtlety." He is right, and on *Line of Duty* the waistcoat does most of the rest. He came to acting sideways. He was a professional footballer with Greenock Morton when Ken Loach cast him, with no experience and no training, as Liam in *Sweet Sixteen* (2002), and the plainness Loach got out of him there is still the thing he does best. It also fixed him, for a while, as the working-class Scottish boy in trouble, and the parts that followed did not always argue otherwise: Stevie in Andrea Arnold's *Red Road* (2006), John O'Hare in *The Damned United* (2009), Gorman in *Filth* (2013). Then Jed Mercurio put him in a suit in 2012 and he has more or less stayed in one, through *Line of Duty*, *Vigil* (2021) and *The Rig*, with one excursion into the sixteenth century as the Earl of Bothwell in *Mary Queen of Scots* (2018). Arnott is the best use anyone has found for him. He is a small, stubborn man in a waistcoat who is right slightly too often for his own good, and that stubbornness is what the series runs on. Lennie James, Keeley Hawes and Thandiwe Newton get the big parts and the long speeches; Compston sits opposite them and declines to be impressed. We have held our breath through scenes that consist of nothing but two people, a table and a file, and it was because Arnott gave the person across the table nothing to read, so we were reading him instead. He is the fixed point the guests push against, which is a compliment and a limit. The first three series are the ones to see, because there the interview rooms are the point; when the later plotting starts to creak, the stillness has less to hold on to, and Arnott spends more time reacting to twists than pursuing anyone. The old complaint that he could only play one kind of boy has not survived. The question now is whether anyone will ask him to do more than watch, and whether he would be any better for it. Further *Line of Duty* is promised, and we will be there. Start with the first three series, and notice how much is happening on a face that appears to be doing nothing at all. ## Biography Martin Compston is a Scottish actor and former professional footballer. He made his acting debut in the lead role of Liam in Ken Loach's *Sweet Sixteen* (2002). Compston played John O'Hare in the film *The Damned United* (2009) and has appeared in other films including *A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints* (2006) and *Doomsday* (2008). He is known for portraying DS Steve Arnott in the BBC series *Line of Duty* (2012–). Other television roles include Ewan Brodie in *Monarch of the Glen* and Dexter Allen in *Death in Paradise* (2011). He was born on 8 May 1984 in Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *Line of Duty* (2012), Fi1m 79, as DS Steve Arnott — [page](https://film.one/tv/line-of-duty.md) ## Also credited on (not yet reviewed) - *The Damned United* (2009), Actor ## Also known for - *Mary Queen of Scots* (2018), Earl of Bothwell - *Filth* (2013), Gorman - *Doomsday* (2008), Joshua - *The Aftermath* (2019), Burnham - *The Disappearance of Alice Creed* (2009), Danny - *The Hunter's Prayer* (2017), Metzger - *A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints* (2006), Mike O'Shea - *Death in Paradise* (2011), Dexter Allen --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/martin-compston