Biography
William Shimell is an English baritone and actor. Born on 23 September 1952 in Brentwood, Essex, he studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio. He began his opera career in the late 1970s and performed with companies including English National Opera, Glyndebourne, the Royal Opera House, La Scala and the Metropolitan Opera.
In 2008, while working with director Abbas Kiarostami on a production of Così fan tutte, Shimell was offered a non-singing film role. He made his screen debut as James Miller in Kiarostami's Certified Copy (2010). He subsequently appeared as Geoff in Michael Haneke's Amour (2012) and as Newman in Claudia Llosa's Aloft (2014).
