Joe Dempsie is an English actor best known for two television characters: Chris Miles in Skins and Gendry in Game of Thrones. The roles introduced him to very different audiences. Chris was a funny, vulnerable teenager in a British drama about growing up; Gendry was a blacksmith whose parentage made him important to the politics of Westeros.
Dempsie has continued working well beyond those defining programmes. His more recent credits include Get Millie Black, the second series of Showtrial, Netflix’s Toxic Town and Addition, a romantic comedy released in Australian cinemas in January 2026. Together, they show an actor moving between crime drama, socially grounded television and lighter film roles.
For readers who mainly remember Gendry, the answer to “what is Joe Dempsie doing now?” is straightforward: he remains an active performer. Game of Thrones made him internationally recognisable, but it has never been the whole of his career.
Who is Joe Dempsie?
Joseph Maxwell Dempsie grew up in Nottingham and began developing his acting skills at the city’s Television Workshop. He had screen credits before his breakthrough in Skins, but the E4 series was the first role to make him familiar to a generation of viewers.
That early training is an important part of his story. The Television Workshop has helped young performers gain experience outside a conventional drama-school route. Dempsie has described joining it while growing up, long before he knew how far his acting career would take him.
His work has remained closely connected to British television even after Game of Thrones. He has taken parts in dramas including Southcliffe, Adult Material and Showtrial, often playing characters whose everyday circumstances are as important as the larger story around them.
There is no need to attach unverified claims about his private relationships to that professional history. Dempsie keeps much of his personal life out of public view, and no reliably confirmed current spouse or partner should be inferred from online speculation.
Chris Miles: the Skins breakthrough
Dempsie played Chris Miles in the first two series of Skins, which began airing in 2007. The programme followed a group of teenagers in Bristol and became known for giving young actors emotionally demanding material rather than treating adolescence as a simple collection of parties and romances.
Chris initially seemed like the cast’s carefree joker. He enjoyed provoking his friends, chasing excitement and behaving as though consequences could always wait. Dempsie’s performance made that impulsiveness entertaining without hiding the character’s loneliness.
As the story progressed, Chris became more complicated. His relationship with teacher Angie and his later closeness with Jal revealed a young man searching for connection while coping with an unstable family life. His death near the end of the second series gave Skins one of its most painful storylines.
That development explains why Chris remains memorable nearly two decades later. He was not simply a comic character removed to make the programme more serious. The humour and tragedy belonged to the same person, and Dempsie had to make both feel credible.
Skins also brought early attention to a cast that included Nicholas Hoult, Dev Patel, Kaya Scodelario, Hannah Murray and Jack O’Connell. Dempsie’s subsequent career took a different shape from some of theirs, but the programme remains the foundation of his public profile in Britain.
How Joe Dempsie became Gendry
In Game of Thrones, Dempsie played Gendry, a young blacksmith who learns that he is an unacknowledged son of King Robert Baratheon. His ancestry makes him valuable—and vulnerable—in a kingdom where claims to power can determine whether someone lives or dies.
Gendry’s practical skills give him an identity beyond that parentage. He is a worker accustomed to making things with his hands, not a nobleman raised to expect a title. That contrast distinguishes him from many characters involved in the struggle for the Iron Throne.
His friendship with Arya Stark, played by Maisie Williams, became central to his story. The two encountered one another while trying to survive dangerous journeys, and their exchanges brought a more direct, playful energy to a series often dominated by strategy and betrayal.
Dempsie appeared during the show’s early seasons, disappeared from its central action for several years and returned later in the run. Gendry’s absence became a long-running subject of viewer jokes, but his return mattered to the plot: Robert’s surviving son was still a potential piece in Westeros’s changing political order.
Gendry, Arya and the final season
Gendry’s relationship with Arya developed further in the final season of Game of Thrones. Their intimacy before the battle at Winterfell was portrayed as a choice made by two adults facing the possibility of death, not a promise that they would build a conventional future together.
After the battle, Daenerys Targaryen legitimised Gendry and named him Lord of Storm’s End. The decision changed his formal status, but it could not make him someone who had spent his life preparing for nobility.
Gendry then proposed marriage to Arya. She refused, remaining clear that becoming a lady at Storm’s End was not the life she wanted. Their ending was therefore not a straightforward romance cut short by circumstance; it followed a conflict between Gendry’s new expectations and Arya’s determination to define her own future.
Dempsie has discussed the pairing in interviews, recognising that Arya’s decision made sense for her character. It is also worth distinguishing fiction from reality: Gendry and Arya’s relationship says nothing about Dempsie’s private romantic life.
Although the final season divided viewers, Gendry’s arc remained consistent in one respect. The blacksmith could accept a title, but the personal history beneath it did not simply disappear.
British drama after Game of Thrones
While Game of Thrones was still part of his career, Dempsie continued to take other television roles. In the spy thriller Deep State, he entered a world of intelligence operations and conflicting loyalties, a marked change from the fantasy setting that made him famous internationally.
He later played Rich in Channel 4’s Adult Material, a drama starring Hayley Squires as a woman working in the adult-film industry while raising a family. Rich is her long-term partner, and the series examines how work, finances and public judgement affect their home life.
The subject required care from the cast and programme-makers. Rather than treating its central character as an object of curiosity, Adult Material explored labour, power and the difficulty of maintaining boundaries between a public identity and private family life. Dempsie’s role placed him inside that domestic tension.
These projects demonstrate a useful pattern in his career. He has not relied on a succession of Gendry-like characters. He has returned to contemporary stories in which loyalty, partnership and a person’s social circumstances shape what they do.
Showtrial and Get Millie Black
Dempsie joined the second series of the BBC legal drama Showtrial as DI Miles Southgate. The anthology-style programme investigates how serious allegations unfold within the justice system and under public scrutiny.
The role belongs to a story where evidence and legal process matter more than quick judgements. As with other entries in the series, viewers are asked to pay attention to what is known, what is alleged and how those distinctions can become blurred outside a courtroom.
In Get Millie Black, Dempsie played Luke Holborn, a British detective whose investigation intersects with that of Millie-Jean Black, portrayed by Tamara Lawrance. Set partly in Jamaica, the series follows searches for missing people while examining the relationships and institutions surrounding the cases.
For Dempsie, the two parts offered different approaches to crime drama. Showtrial focuses on a case’s legal and public consequences; Get Millie Black extends its investigation across places and communities. Neither depends on audiences already knowing him from Game of Thrones.
Joe Dempsie in Netflix’s Toxic Town
In the 2025 Netflix drama Toxic Town, Dempsie played Derek Mahon. The series dramatises the experiences of families affected by the handling of contaminated industrial waste in Corby, Northamptonshire, and the long fight for accountability that followed.
Its story centres on mothers seeking answers after their children were born with disabilities. The real events behind the programme demand a distinction between dramatised characters and the people who lived through the case. Dempsie’s role is part of the series’ depiction of how the crisis affected households as well as the wider town.
Toxic Town is another example of his involvement in an ensemble rather than a programme built around a single star. Working alongside performers including Jodie Whittaker, Aimee Lou Wood and Robert Carlyle, he contributes to a story whose focus remains on the families and their campaign.
That work helps explain his career after Gendry: high-profile fantasy may have brought him the largest audience, but he has continued choosing grounded British dramas about institutions, relationships and ordinary lives.
Addition: a different role in 2026
Dempsie took a gentler turn in Addition, an Australian romantic comedy starring Teresa Palmer. He plays Seamus, who forms a connection with Grace, a woman whose habit of counting structures—and sometimes restricts—her daily life.
The film was completed earlier but reached Australian cinemas in January 2026. Screen Australia’s production listing confirms Dempsie and Palmer among its cast and describes it as a story about accepting who you are.
Seamus offers Dempsie something different from a detective, a Westerosi claimant or a man living through a public crisis. The film relies on the relationship developing through conversation and on whether two people can be honest about the ways they experience the world.
It also demonstrates why release and production dates should not be confused. Addition was completed before 2026, but its Australian cinema release that January made it one of Dempsie’s current screen credits.
A career bigger than its two most famous characters
Chris Miles and Gendry remain the quickest ways to identify Joe Dempsie, but they do not describe the full range of his work. One role made him a defining face of British teen television; the other placed him inside one of the world’s most watched fantasy series.
Since then, Dempsie has played partners, detectives and working men across programmes with very different concerns. Toxic Town and Addition show that range particularly clearly: one is rooted in a community’s fight for answers, while the other finds drama in an intimate new connection.
His continuing career is less about escaping those early roles than using the opportunities they created. Viewers can still return to Skins or Game of Thrones, but there is contemporary work to discover beyond both.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Joe Dempsie?
Joe Dempsie is an English actor best known for playing Chris Miles in Skins and Gendry in Game of Thrones.
What has Joe Dempsie appeared in recently?
His recent credits include Get Millie Black, the second series of Showtrial, Toxic Town and the film Addition.
Who did Joe Dempsie play in Skins?
He played Chris Miles in the first two series. Chris’s humour, difficult family life and tragic storyline made him one of the programme’s most remembered characters.
Is Gendry a Baratheon in Game of Thrones?
Yes. Gendry is an unacknowledged son of Robert Baratheon. Daenerys legitimises him and names him Lord of Storm’s End in the final season.
What is Joe Dempsie’s role in Addition?
He plays Seamus, who develops a relationship with Grace, played by Teresa Palmer. The film reached Australian cinemas in January 2026.
Is Joe Dempsie married?
There is no reliably confirmed public information establishing a current spouse. His private relationship status should not be inferred from rumours or from the characters he plays.
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