Edward "Ed" Speleers (born April 07, 1988 in Chichester, West Sussex) is an English actor. His debut role was the title role in Eragon, an adaptation of Christopher Paolini's fantasy novel of the same name. The movie was released internationally on December 15, 2006.
He studied at two British independent schools: Dorset House School in Bury, near Pulborough in West Sussex and Eastbourne College, a boarding school in the town of Eastbourne, in East Sussex. He had no acting experience beyond amateur school productions. While only having experience in these plays, he had enough talent to be the star of several of the productions such as Peter Pan, Richard the III, and Hamlet. He also had experience in previous film auditions such as the audition for the role of Peter in The Chronicles of Narnia. He lost out in the final auditions to Jaxin Hall, a New Zealand actor, and William Moseley, a fellow UK actor, the role eventually going to William. He also auditioned for the role of a young Hannibal Lecter, but lost to Gaspard Ulliel. Despite this, he beat out 180,000 hopefuls, including Jaxin Hall this time, to land the title role of the multi-million dollar screen version of Eragon.
Speleers is also an accomplished football player, rugby player, and saxophone player.
Speleers is best known for his debut role as the title character in Eragon. Speleers has said that he is "currently working on some [other] film projects but [that] they are top secret at this stage." Before Eragon, Speelers acted in a short film by Charlie Bleakley, called Metropolis.
While at school, Speleers also wrote a play, Retribution, with his friend Rob Curran. Retribution investigated the subjects of child abuse and paedophilia.
