Jonathan Harden is a Northern Irish actor of Central European heritage born in Belfast in 1979 to an American mother. He is a series regular in ITV crime drama Unforgotten as Sean Rawlins, and has also appeared in Jimmy McGovern's prison drama Time, Peep Show, Titanic: Blood and Steel, and Nick Nickleby, a BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel.
As a voice actor and voiceover artist, Harden is in high demand, having provided narration for the 2015 BAFTA-winning short film Boogaloo and Graham, as well as voices for several video games, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I. He also brought a new species in the Halo universe to life on screen in the Ridley Scott-produced Halo: Nightfall.
On stage, Harden has appeared in Henry Joy McCracken in Stewart Parker's Northern Star at the Finborough Theatre and Children of the Sun at the Royal National Theatre under the direction of Howard Davies.
In 2015, Harden launched The Honest Actors' Podcast, a project featuring interviews with other jobbing actors, which made top podcast lists on Buzzfeed and the iPaper, and was a Metro Podcast of the week, before winning the UK Blog Award in the Best Arts category.
As a filmmaker, Harden produced and directed his first project, Guard, a female-led boxing film set in Belfast, which debuted at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2017 and had its North American premiere at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. He also produced and directed Troubles, a film on the subject of male mental health, which debuted at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2018.
In 2021, Harden appeared in Jimmy McGovern's prison drama Time as lifer Brendan Murphy, earning praise from many, including Esquire, which called his performance "a highly-charged, emotive turn", and the Sunday Life, which noted it as "superb".
Harden has been married to writer/actress Bronágh Taggart since 2008.
