John Hunter Bell is a Scottish actor. He made his television debut at age 10 as Creet in Doctor Who’s 2007 episode “Utopia”, after he won the role in a competition. Two years later he portrayed the lead role of Connor in award winning director Chris Roche’s short film Transit then went on to star as young orphan Tomas in his first feature length film A Shine of Rainbows for which he won the Best Actor award at the Newport Beach film festival in 2010.
From 2009 to 2010 he portrayed Anthony Weaver in BBC One’s comedy series Life of Riley, and from 2010 to 2011 starred as Toby Coleman in the BAFTA winning children’s television series, Tracy Beaker Returns.
In 2011 Bell appeared in BBC’s made for TV movie, Hattie, as Robin Le Mesurier, and was named by the youth casting website Screenterrier, as one of the top 12 British rising stars.
In 2012 he portrayed Helius in the fantasy film, Wrath of the Titans, and Angus in the science fiction war film, Battleship. He then appeared as Billy Bempsy in the History Channel’s mini-series, Hatfields & McCoys.
2013 saw Bell portray Bain, son of Bard the Bowman, in Peter Jackson’s epic adventure fantasy films The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and 2014’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Between the two films, he portrayed Jamie Carr in a 2013 episode of ITV’s long running series, Midsomer Murders.
Bell portrayed Billy in a highly acclaimed Short film, Billy the kid, and appeared as the character Gabriel in 5 Episodes of the TV series, Into the Badlands.
In 2017 he played a young version of Spud in the long-awaited sequel to beloved cult hit Trainspotting – T2 Trainspotting.
Since 2017, Bell has been portraying young Ian Murray in STARZ’s historic time travel series, Outlander. His character first appeared in episode six of season three entitled “A. Malcolm” and he has become a much beloved cast member.
On stage, John headlined the revival of Obie winner David Drake’s Off-Broadway one-man show The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me in early 2022. The acclaimed one-man show has been taking audiences on a whirlwind tour of LGBT+ rights and history since it debuted in 1992, and it was an “exhilarating opportunity” for John to be part of.