In 1994, Lincoln made his TV debut in "Births and Deaths", an episode of the
Channel 4 sitcom
Drop the Dead Donkey. In 1995, soon after finishing drama school, he was cast in his first major role playing Edgar "Egg" Cooke, one of the lead characters in the BBC drama
This Life. He went on to appear in British television series and dramas such as
The Woman in White,
The Canterbury Tales, and
Wuthering Heights, including probationary teacher Simon Casey in the Channel 4 sitcom
Teachers. He also had a lead role as university lecturer and psychologist Robert Bridge in
Afterlife, and starred in the
Sky 1 series
Strike Back with
Richard Armitage in 2010. Lincoln appeared in several films such as
Human Traffic and
Gangster No. 1 and starred alongside
Vanessa Paradis in Pascal Chaumeil's
Heartbreaker. In particular, his role as Mark in the 2003 film
Love Actually gained him wider recognition. Lincoln has performed in plays, including
Hushabye Mountain in 1999,
Blue/Orange in 2000 and 2001,
The Late Henry Moss in 2006, the
Parlour Song in 2009, as well as radio productions. He has done
voice-overs for
documentaries,
advertisements, and
government campaigns. He directed two episodes in the third series of
Teachers for which he received a
BAFTA nomination for Best New Director (Fiction) in 2004. the
protagonist of
AMC's
post-apocalyptic series
The Walking Dead. Grimes is a sheriff's deputy who awakens from a coma in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. He becomes the leader of a group of family and friends who are forced to relentlessly fight off flesh-eating zombies and hostile humans. In 2010, Lincoln signed up for the show for a potential six years and renegotiated a deal for two further seasons. Lincoln appeared on the show for the final time on 4 November 2018, having previously stated that he wished to spend more time with his children. According to
The New York Times, Lincoln's role on
The Walking Dead made him "the center of one of the world's biggest pop culture franchises". Following Lincoln's departure from
The Walking Dead, it was planned that he would reprise his role of Rick Grimes in a trilogy of feature-length films. Due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, the films were delayed; they were later replaced with
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live, a six-hour television show starring both Lincoln and
Danai Gurira. Lincoln has received various awards and nominations for his portrayal of Rick Grimes; he won the
Saturn Award for Best Actor on Television in 2015 and again in 2017. In 2012 and 2015,
TVLine spotlighted Lincoln as "Performer of the Week" for his performance in the fourth episode of
season 3 ("
Killer Within") and for the fifteenth episode of
season 5 ("
Try"), respectively. Regarding Lincoln's performance in "Try", TVLine said that he "could act his way from A to Z all within the span of a single hour". In 2019, Lincoln was cast in and filmed in the drama
Penguin Bloom, his first non-
The Walking Dead role since 2010. == Personal life ==