Age: 44
male
Rupert William Anthony Friend (born October 1981) is an English actor. He first gained recognition for his roles in The Libertine (2004) and Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (2005), winning him awards for best newcomer. He portrayed George Wickham in Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lieutenant Kurt Kotler in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008), Albert, Prince Consort in The Young Victoria (2009), psychologist Oliver Baumer in Starred Up (2013), CIA operative Peter Quinn in the political thriller series Homeland (2012–2017), Vasily Stalin in The Death of Stalin (2017), Theo van Gogh in At Eternity's Gate (2018), and Ernest Donovan in the series Strange Angel (2018–2019). In the early 2020s, Friend began collaborating with director Wes Anderson, starting with a cameo in The French Dispatch (2021), followed by roles in Asteroid City (2023) and the Netflix short films The Swan and The Rat Catcher. In 2022, he starred as disgraced British politician James Whitehouse in Anatomy of a Scandal and featured in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi as the Grand Inquisitor. Friend is the director, screenwriter or producer of two award-winning short films: The Continuing and Lamentable Saga of the Suicide Brothers (2008) and Steve (2010). He wrote lyrics for the Kairos 4Tet 2013 album Everything We Hold. Description above from the Wikipedia article Rupert Friend, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general - also known as her tough-as-talons mother - has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you're smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away... because dragons don't bond to 'fragile' humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother's daughter - like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She'll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Alliances will be forged. Lives will be lost. Traitors will become allies... or even lovers. But sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.
