Doug Bradley is known to audiences around the world for his performance as the iconic Lead Cenobite—universally known as Pinhead—in Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) and seven sequels (1989-2002).

Born in Liverpool, England, in 1954, Doug has described as “the moment that changed my life” the day in 1969 when he reported for rehearsals for the school play at Quarry Bank High School and met his fellow cast members, which included Barker. The pair worked together, creating independent theater from musicals to mime through the 1970s in Liverpool and London, culminating in The Dog Company, performing original plays by Barker, with Doug appearing, among many others, as The Devil (The History of The Devil) and Dr. Frankenstein (Frankenstein in Love). The company disbanded in 1982, and Bradley went on to work in provincial repertory theater in England.

Doug recalls a comment to him by Clive in 1985: “I’m trying to put together an independent, low-budget British horror film, and I think there might be a part in there for you.” A year later, at Cricklewood Production Village in London, the cameras rolled on Hellraiser.

Among Doug’s more than 70 further credits are Nightbreed (1990), Prophecy: Uprising (2005), Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes (2006), Book of Blood (2009), Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012), Thorns and The Exorcists (both 2023). As a voice actor, he has been heard in video games as the Sith Emperor in Star Wars: The Old Republic—Shadow of Revan (2014) and Legacy of the Sith (2022) and as Pinhead in Dead by Daylight (2022).