Edward Rowe (actor)

Edward Rowe is a Cornish actor, known for the lead role as a struggling fisherman in the BAFTA-winning film Bait and for the Kernow King character.

Early life
Rowe is from Roche in Cornwall where he started his standup routine and YouTube video series. He attended Poltair School from the age of 11 to 16.

Early career and Kernow King
His Kernow King character features a strong Cornish identity and speaks in a strong Cornish accent. In mid 2010 he produced a series of short comedy videos on Cornish themes, often in the spoof documentary format. Examples include the Camborne Maid's song remake of musician Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl". This led to a 2014 standup tour, Splann!.

Rowe wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian in 2012 criticising the proposed pasty tax. In 2015, he starred in Kernow King's sex tape, an educational film produced by Cornwall Council's Health Promotion Service. This was nominated for the UK Sexual Health Awards. Rowe was made a bard of Gorsedh Kernow in 2015 "for his work as an ambassador for the Cornish identity".

In 2017, he starred in the Hall for Cornwall's Christmas show, Sleeping Beauty.

In 2018, he wrote and starred in the play Hireth, about a Cornish miner, and starred in Trevithick!, a biographical comedy about Richard Trevithick directed by Kneehigh Theatre's Simon Harvey.

Bait
Rowe found breakthrough success for his lead role in Bait, a film by Mark Jenkin. He was longlisted for Best Actor and Most Promising Newcomer at the 2019 British Independent Film Awards.

Post-Bait career
He has appeared in a number of television shows which include The Witcher as King Henselt of Kaedwen, House of the Dragon as Ser Howland Sharp, and Beyond Paradise as Matthew Colbert. He also voiced the character Godfrey/Hoarah Loux in 2022 video game Elden Ring and starred as The Boatman in Jenkin's 2022 film Enys Men.

In 2022, Rowe called Channel 4's Finding the Cornish Dream series "abhorrent" and "deeply disrespectful" at a time when "[m]ost of us are scraping along making sure we make our mortgage payments."