One thing I try to avoid in profiles is overt gush. You know what I mean: “X pulls off the impressive feat of being as talented as they are good-looking. Is there anything they can’t do?” Achievements must be celebrated – we rarely slag off our cover stars – but ideally, you want to play it cool. You’re doing an interview, not a eulogy.
Leo Suter presents a dilemma. What exactly am I meant to do here? Pretend he isn’t extremely charming and articulate? That he doesn’t combine a model’s bone structure with the physique of a Greek god? Never mention the James Bond rumours, ignore the espionage in the room?
I first interviewed Suter a couple of years ago. He arrived on a bicycle and cheerfully told me that he’d just taken a sledgehammer to a wall in his flat. We had a coffee and talked about Vikings – he’d recently completed the final season of the hit Netflix series Vikings: Valhalla.
Much has changed in the intervening years; much remains the same. This time, we’re meeting for lunch in Covent Garden rather than coffee in King’s Cross. Suter is now playing a detective rather than a Norse king. He still arrives on a bicycle, and he’s yet again experiencing structural issues at home – the roof sprung a leak a few weeks ago. If we do a third interview, the man should really up his building insurance.
Our lunch spot is Gilroy’s Loft, the seafood restaurant set atop the newly opened Guinness Open Gate Brewery. I’m taking in the view from the outdoor balcony when Suter arrives, barely a minute late yet apologetic nonetheless. As with our previous meeting, I’m immediately struck by his open, friendly manner, the sense of comfort in his own skin. I suspect he is one of those people you could drop into most social situations and he would handle himself just fine.
We are shown to a corner table and accept the suggested Guinness. It’s my first visit to the brewery; Suter met the king here the other day. (As you do.) His Majesty was officially opening the place, pouring a pint of the black stuff and greeting the cast of Gurinder Chadha’s Christmas Karma, a musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol in which Suter played Bob Cratchit.
Were words exchanged with King Charles? “He asked me if Gurinder was a good director. And I said she was.” Suter chuckles at this perfect example of royal interaction. “Our newborn was weeks old. So I cycled down from parent duties, shook hands with the king, and cycled home.”
If nothing else, he got the chance to impress his American mother-in-law while she was over. “Where are you going?” she asked Suter as he prepared to depart. “Oh, to meet the king,” he replied. “Back soon.” He returned to discover a leak in his house. “It was an eventful Thursday afternoon.”
Inside Gilroy's Loft
It wasn’t his first brush with royalty: he visited Buckingham Palace as a teenager when his late mother Helen Alexander got a damehood. (A truly exceptional woman, Dame Helen was also awarded the Légion d’Honneur.) I’m in the rare position of being able to compare notes here as my mum got a CBE a couple of years back. (Less grand than a damehood but it gets you in the building.) We agree the experience entails lots of standing around in very nice rooms – and going through the front gates is the highlight.
Gilroy’s Loft is also a very nice room, albeit decorated with slightly fewer Old Masters. There’s a beautiful horseshoe bar, wall-to-ceiling windows looking out over the rooftops of Covent Garden and an outdoor balcony made for months that aren’t January. An estimated £73m went into the brewery and a fair chunk clearly found its way up here; Gilroy’s executive chef Pip Lacey worked under Clare Smyth, Gordon Ramsay and Angela Hartnett. Impressive names to grace the culinary CV.
Suter’s own CV is getting fairly well stocked. It’s been a busy couple of years, personally and professionally. He married his partner Haylee in 2024 and the pair welcomed their first child last November – while Suter was doing The Line of Beauty at the Almeida. (Quoting the Observer review: “Suter, tanned and oiled up, provided the most jaw-dropping moment of the evening just by taking his shirt off.”) Christmas Karma came out in December, and 2026 kicks off with Lynley, a new adaptation of the much-loved The Inspector Lynley Mysteries airing Monday nights on BBC One.
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As Suter has pointed out, there are notable parallels between actor and character. Both are Oxford graduates who chose to pursue somewhat unconventional careers. Unlike Lynley, Suter isn’t a literal aristocrat but he enjoyed a comfortable upbringing thanks to two immensely accomplished parents: Dame Helen was a businesswoman extraordinaire, his father Tim taught at Eton before becoming a managing editor at the BBC.
“He’s a big reason why I got into acting,” says Leo. While a teacher, Tim Suter directed school plays, and frequently took his family to the theatre. (Leo has two siblings: Gregory is a sports consultant, Nina works in financial PR.) “We were quite young to see Shakespeare plays but he would always tell us the story before we went, so we’d have a rough handle of what was going on. And in a very engaging way that made us really get something out of it.”
Lynley isn’t Shakespeare but it’s a very enjoyable watch, not only for crime enthusiasts but fans of classic cars – the detective zips around in a 1970s Jensen Interceptor Mk II. It’s a canny move by Suter: the primetime BBC detective drama has a very different viewing demographic than the Vikings. Has Suter noticed the increased exposure? “I have,” he says. “More people have messaged me. Well, more of my parents’ friends have messaged me.”
One highlight is Lynley’s verbal sparring with DCI Nies, played by the immortal Daniel Mays. “I’m full of the highest admiration for Leo,” Mays told me. “Not least for stepping into the iconic shoes of Inspector Lynley, which inevitably brings comparisons to the original, but the sheer talent, nuance, grace and command he’s delivered in the role.
Shop the look: Seersucker loose-fit shirt and trousers by Giorgio Armani.
“He led from the front and was an outstanding scene partner to share the screen with. Nies and Lynley have some titanic exchanges and Leo matched me every step of the way… He’s versatile, enthusiastic, a skilled performer with the movie-star looks to match. Watch this space – Leo is a serious new player on the scene.”
“Sweetheart!” says Suter when I read him the Mays quotes, looking delighted and a little bashful. “He was so brilliant. He is so brilliant. And yeah, we do have some good ding-dongs in the show.”
Since Mays brought up his good looks, I suppose we should touch upon them. Normally there’s no need: the pictures are right there, and their effectiveness over words is famously quantifiable. But it would be remiss not to mention the reaction that photos of Suter invariably provoke – i.e. some variation on “phwoar”.
“He looks like James Bond, doesn’t he?” says a friend. Her boyfriend is more effusive: “That man is a physical ten.” And here’s my editor, discussing potential front cover options: “I’ve tried a few; he’s so good looking, they basically all work.”
I refrain from sharing these reactions with Suter. Poor guy has suffered enough with the Mays quotes, and besides, the Guinness has arrived.
Time to consider grub. We are strongly advised to share the seafood platter and neither of us require much convincing. Unsurprisingly, the Guinness is excellent. (If it wasn’t excellent, you’d really have to ask questions.) Here is as good a place as any to note the service is impeccable throughout, extremely professional yet also relaxed and friendly. Gilroy’s may be in London but they have the Irish hospitality down pat. It proves a thoroughly lovely place to while away an afternoon.
Suter knows Ireland well: both Vikings: Valhalla and Lynley were filmed in County Wicklow, just south of Dublin. The two shows even used the same crew. “They were chuckling to themselves because they remembered me doing bare-chested boxing matches,” says Suter, “not swanning around in a Jensen Interceptor, figuring out knotty murders.” At least we chose the right spot for lunch… “You sure did!”
His favourite Dublin watering holes? Temple Bar, obviously – no, I’m kidding. Doheny & Nesbitt and Toners, both on Baggot Street. Although Suter notes that Valhalla being an ensemble piece allowed for more days off; Lynley was a full-time gig. “When you’re the detective, you’re in every single day, 6am until 7pm. There was Toners on the weekends, but not much else.”
His affinity with Ireland goes beyond work: he met Haylee there. On set? “Just out and about.” In Toners? Suter laughs. “Not in Toners. But we do have a map of Dublin in our front hallway, which is a testament to how it’s a special place for us.”
Valhalla made his name; he spent three seasons playing the swaggering Harald Sigurdsson, the Viking adventurer destined to become the legendary king Harald Hardrada. Suter’s summary of Harald’s life also serves as a pitch for anyone who hasn’t watched the series: “A thousand years ago, getting banished from his homelands, making his way down to the biggest city in the world, working his way up through the emperor’s bodyguard, amassing a fortune and coming back and becoming king.”
Does he miss the show? “No,” he says after a moment’s deliberation. “Three seasons is a great amount of time to really get into a character, do that whole multi-episode story arc. And I was really happy with how season three finished.” No desire to reach the Battle of Stamford Bridge? “I didn’t want to lose the battle! Finish on a high.” What about a Netflix movie to finish the story? “Oh, I’d bite their hand off!”
There were talks about utilising the gaps in the Norse sagas – the primary source of Harald’s biography – to potentially develop a spinoff where Harald travelled to America with Leif Erikson. Historically dubious, narratively rich. Suter would love to continue the story, “even if I’d have to grow the hair back.” Today, he sports more of a beard than the clean-cut Lynley but isn’t close to the magnificently hirsute Harald.
His Viking days may be over – for now – but he spent last summer playing a knight in the upcoming The Face of Horror. The highly anticipated film is the latest from director Anna Biller, best known for the 2016 cult classic The Love Witch. The photos he shows me from the set depict an array of eye-poppingly colourful costumes and Suter looking ridiculously dashing in a suit of armour and bright blue cloak.
Biller shot entirely on film. More elaborate backdrops – e.g. a massive castle – were created through glass painting, where an image is literally painted on a sheet of glass and placed over the camera. Suter has a video of the process on his phone. “Isn’t that so clever?” he says as a castle suddenly materialises on an empty hill. “That’s what they used to do back in the day.”
Shop the look: Check double-breasted suit by Dunhill; silk shirt by Edward Sexton.
His fellow knight is played by Jonah Hauer-King, a former Square Mile cover and all-round good egg. “Having known Leo for years, it was a pleasure finally getting to work together,” said Hauer-King over email. “Leo is a unique actor: he looks like a Greek god and has all the earmarks of a leading man, but he’s also endlessly funny and dry and not afraid to make fun of himself.
“We did have a scene where we had to stand topless next to each other, which I cannot recommend to any future co-actors who want their self-esteem left intact.”
Hauer-King and Suter attended the same preparatory school – The Hall in Hampstead. Hauer-King is a couple of years younger than Suter but they shared the same drama teacher, Carl Gilbey-McKenzie.
In our previous interview, Suter cited Mr Gilbey-McKenzie as a primary reason he became an actor. He now enjoys a well-deserved retirement but I managed to reach him by phone to get his memories of Suter as a schoolboy. The former teacher describes an interesting and clever boy, a formidable sportsman and an accomplished dancer. (I know, I know.)
“I said to him one occasion, ‘Your dancing is incredible.’ He said, ‘It’s all down to you.’” Mr Gilbey-McKenzie chuckles. “It wasn’t me because I was a hopeless dancer!” A smiling Suter confirms: “Mr Gilbey-McKenzie is a brilliant man but I wouldn’t have said he was a dancer.”
Naturally, there was also drama: “He appeared in two or three plays that I did at school and he was always strikingly good,” recalls Mr Gilbey-McKenzie. “I was delighted when he became an actor. So many of them go off and make money in the City and they’re lost to theatre. But Leo, I’m glad to say, has gone for it.”
What made him go for it? “When you find a passion, you find something that you love doing, you’d be a fool not to give it a go. I genuinely found something that I really wanted to do.”
Shop the look: Bomber jacket by Giorgio Armani; Henley top by David Gandy Wellwear.
He describes a weekend with his aunt during the Edinburgh festival, seeing about 15 shows over the weekend in wide-eyed awe. He performed there with the Oxford University Dramatic Society and landed a film straight out of university. The teacher clearly knew his stuff.
Suter is palpably touched by the words of the man who had such an impact on his life. He wrote to Mr Gilbey-McKenzie on Facebook after being cast in The Line of Beauty: “You inspired my love for acting and now I’m doing a play. Come and see it.” However he never heard back – a silence surely owing to the message being missed rather than ignored. I pass the relevant email address onto Suter in the hope the two might reconnect.
During our call, Mr Gilbey-McKenzie mentions another former student – Jonah Hauer-King. Apparently they bumped into each other in a bathroom at the National Theatre. “He said, ‘Carl!’ and threw his arms around me – much to the astonishment of the people who were standing at the various urinals!”
Hauer-King confirms the encounter. “The only part of that story that isn’t true is that I called him ‘Carl’! He will forever be Mr Gilbey-McKenzie to me. He was a brilliantly passionate and inventive teacher, singlehandedly responsible for leading our drama department. He also gave me one of my earliest memories at the theatre, taking a group of us to see The 39 Steps.”
Many remarkable people appear in this profile: actors, directors, even a literal monarch. It sounds like Mr Gilbey-McKenzie is as remarkable as any of them.
“What a delight!” exclaims Suter when the seafood platter arrives. It’s pretty damn delightful: three stories starting with Jersey oysters on the ground, mussels, clams and cuts of seabream in the middle, Atlantic king prawns and half a lobster at the top. Carbs are supplied by soda bread and very well-cooked chips that come with this incredible seaweed mayonnaise. As Suter notes, helping himself to an oyster: “When there’s a seafood platter as an option, you do have to go for it.”
Speaking of going for it… The most coveted role in British film is very publicly available. Bookmakers make Suter a leading contender for James Bond. His 007 credentials were being touted in profiles dating back to his mid-20s. Now, as the race to replace Daniel Craig approaches its climax, the hype machine has gone into overdrive. A recent interview in The Times was headlined: “Lynley star Leo Suter — ‘Would I play Bond? Watch this space.’”
He was answering a question on whether he’d had any conversations with the new producers. When I mention the headline, Suter adopts the wary smile of a man preparing to navigate a rhetorical minefield. “It’s mad how a little tagline can be run with and do the rounds. But yeah, lots of people were messaging me after that.”
Presumably he isn’t going to reveal anything now? “It’s nice to be a part of the conversation,” he says, the youthful fast bowler playing the straightest of bats.
He has one supporter in his former drama teacher. Mr Gilbey-McKenzie has already polished off every episode of Lynley. “I was watching him as Lynley thinking, ‘Is this man Bond?’ I think he could be. He has the looks, the style, the physicality. I think he could do it.” If Suter became Bond, presumably that would make Mr Gilbey-McKenzie ‘M’… There’s a bark of laughter down the line. “Yes! Wonderful!”
I don’t press Suter on Bond. What’s he going to say? Funnily enough, I landed the role last week, Amazon wanted to do a big splashy announcement but that last Guinness convinced me to break the NDA and hand you the global exclusive, excuse me, I need to call my lawyer…” (To reiterate: he 100% doesn’t say this.)
Obviously he looks the part: not just ridiculously handsome but the right kind of ridiculously handsome, possessing the “dark, rather cruel good looks” described by Ian Fleming, standing at a muscular 6’2. Bond must be equally plausible as someone who can seduce a beautiful woman in the time required to consume a vodka martini and beat up a psychotic giant with steel teeth. Suter requires zero suspension of disbelief in either department.
He has the right profile: 32 years old, credentials proved on TV – Harald Sigurdsson is basically a Norse Bond – but not defined by one role or overly exposed. And there must be something to the rumours as Suter hasn’t denied that conversations have taken place, although their substance is a mystery. Whatever, there’s still a chance I’ve had lunch with James Bond, and that’s good enough for me.
Callum Turner will now be announced the day after we go to press.
We polish off the platter down to the last mussel and order another Guinness and a cheese board. Needless to say, Suter dotes on his offspring but I get the impression he’s happy to maximise this brief hiatus from parental duty. He finds fatherhood “completely amazing”. His daughter was born towards the end of his run in The Line of Beauty. Suddenly the nerves, the adrenaline of live theatre were put into perspective. “All of that shrinks,” he says. “You’ve got so many other priorities.”
For the next few months, work will mostly take a backseat. He has press for Lynley (hi!) but otherwise being a dad is the full-time vocation. Beatrix Potter currently takes precedence on the reading list. The odd cinema trip is possible: Suter recently attended a child-friendly screening of Hamnet with a group of new parents. A slightly odd choice considering its subject matter but I suppose the babies aren’t following the plot too much.
What ambitions remain once he returns to the day job? Another season of Lynley would be nice. He hopes to return to the stage, maybe do some Shakespeare. He would love a project where he can show off those famous dance moves. Maybe do something musical – he loved the drums as a kid and still keeps in practice. “I have actually played the drums at a few weddings,” he says. Including his own? Suter grins. “I only did it for a couple of songs. But it was quite fun.”
The cheeseboard is also quite fun, featuring a nice selection of British cheeses such as Lincolnshire Poacher (hard, delicious), Baron Bigod (similar to a Brie), Beauvale (a rich blue) and Rollright (very creamy). When we run out of crackers, freshly cooked biscuits are supplied, warm from the oven. As I say, impeccable service.
Over a final Guinness, conversation turns to the important stuff – primarily the plight of the England cricket team. He was a fine fast bowler in his youth until a stress fracture to the lower vertebrae meant he couldn’t run for a year. “I played too much cricket in the summer,” he says. “It was one of my great loves. Although the injury now means I can pretend that I would have had a glittering career as a cricketer.”
At least his natural athleticism returned. Witness the old training videos for Valhalla combat scenes he occasionally posts on Instagram, Suter and a stunt coordinator leaping around the Dubrovnik waterfront with dervish intensity. They are seriously impressive and genuinely quite thrilling. He is not a man who does stuff by half.
There’s a mantra he lives by: interconnectedness. He got it from the actor Rufus Sewell. Essentially, “everything you do will connect to something. There will be connections but it’s not linear and it’s not chronological.” Suter was cast in the David Schwimmer sitcom Intelligence after Schwimmer saw a short film he made at university. Good work will be rewarded.
A few days after our interview, I receive a message from Suter: Mr Gilbey-McKenzie has replied to his email. Student and teacher are back in touch. “So special to reconnect!” writes Leo. Special. He inhabits the word more than most.
Watch Lynley now on BBC iPlayer.
