Dr Tommy Jessop (Honorary Doctorate University of Winchester)

Tommy Jessop is an internationally recognized, multi award-winning actor and campaigner who has changed the way people understand life with Down Syndrome and made the invisible visible.

Tommy’s message: I would say be yourselves, believe in yourselves, we are all different, live your lives to the full and show what we are all truly capable of doing.

I wrote and recorded my book A Life worth Living to inspire other people to believe in themselves.

As an actor I’m motivated and inspired by getting into character and seeing how other people’s minds work.

My first big TV break was being the first actor with Down Syndrome to play the lead in a primetime TV drama; the BAFTA nominated Coming Down the Mountain, BBC1, starring opposite Nicholas Hoult.

On stage my personal highlight of many was playing Hamlet in the original language on mainstream stages as featured in the international Emmy-nominated BBC documentary Growing Up Downs. Another personal highlight was my first step into feature film in Steven Spielberg’s Masters of the Air (2024).

Favourite roles on TV, radio and film include playing Ben in Coming down the Mountain, Terry Boyle in Line of Duty, 2 episodes of Casualty, Holby City, Monroe, Doctors, winning Best Actor Awards for playing a boxer, a thief, and a murderer in short films shown in the UK, US and Europe and various BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Plays. (The Climb, Dead Fishes and a cameo role in The Archers).

I was honoured to become an honorary Doctor of Arts (University of Winchester), a full member of BAFTA, a lead campaigner for the Down Syndrome Act 2022, patron of the National Down Syndrome Policy Group, Ambassador for Mencap, and Patron of the Portsmouth Down syndrome Association.

I hate diagnostic overshadowing in medical care. It really is a big problem because many health professionals look at the label Down syndrome and do not talk to the patient themselves who are suffering so they miss symptoms. I am truly a man on a mission to tackle this through public speaking, media interviews, investigative reporting for the BBC’s Panorama in Will the NHS Care for Me? and as Freddie in Freddie’s Story a film used for training medical staff in almost all UK NHS Foundation Trusts.

Another of my missions is to challenge the film industry to believe in us as actors. So my brother and I made the BBC documentary Tommy Jessop Goes to Hollywood and are now working to create our own feature film.

All this led to public speaking for large national conferences, a reception at the US Embassy, UK Parliament and lots of media interviews in national print, television and podcasts.