Chris Barrie (born Christopher Jonathan Brown) is a British actor, comedian, and impressionist. He first achieved success as a vocal impressionist, and alongside numerous TV appearances can be seen as Lara Croft's butler "Hillary" in the Tomb Raider franchise films.
Barrie was born in Hanover, Lower Saxony, West Germany, to a father who was serving in the British Army, and attended Methodist College Belfast boarding school in Northern Ireland. After dropping out of Brighton Polytechnic, he began his TV career as a sports personality impersonator on The David Essex Showcase; it was at this point that he adopted the surname "Barrie" for Equity reasons – as there was already an actor named Chris Brown on the Equity UK lists. He provided the voice of Ronald Reagan in the pop song "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, as well as various vocalisations for other tracks by FGTH and Art of Noise.
When a pilot for an American version of Red Dwarf was produced, Barrie was invited to reprise his role as Rimmer. He passed up the offer because of the constraint of the five-series contract, which is standard for American television. Robert Llewellyn was the only cast member of the British show to participate in the pilot, which was not picked up. In 2014 Barrie appeared in the music video to Little Mix's version of Word Up! as Mr Brittas, a revival of the his character from the BBC sitcom, The Brittas Empire.
Chris Barrie's most recent TV work includes Britain's Greatest Machines with Chris Barrie, screened on the National Geographic Channel from 4 June 2009. Barrie has also hosted the television series Chris Barrie's Massive Engines and Chris Barrie's Massive Machines on the Discovery Channel which was later shown on Channel 5 where both series received record viewing figures and are now on DVD. The latest in this series Massive Speed with Chris Barrie was shown on Discovery Channel from November 2006. In 2006, he appeared as a regular team captain in the BBC Two quiz show Petrolheads, and is the star of the British crime/comedy/drama film Back In Business, in which he plays Tom Marks.
