英国演员吉姆·斯特吉斯1978年生于伦敦，93至95年跃于英国国立青年音乐剧团，曾在曼城索尔福德(Salford)大学主修媒体、音乐和表演。

　　他的表演事业起步于电视圈，出演过广播剧，05年通过艾莲·佩奇主演的《嘴对嘴》中一个小角色才登上大银幕。07年朱丽·泰莫执导的歌舞爱情片《纵横宇宙》中吉姆·斯特加斯首次担任主角，片中还重新演绎了几首披头士经典歌曲；08上映的亨利八世古装爱情剧《另一个波琳家的女孩》将让观众看到斯特加斯出演“波琳家的男孩”、片中斯嘉丽·约翰逊和娜塔丽·波特曼角色的哥哥而登场，另一部担任配角的非法移民生活题材剧情片《交换》也将于同期推出。有了这些铺垫之后，吉姆·斯特加斯接下来会与凯文·史派西、凯特·波茨沃斯一起主演题材颇具票房吸引力的新片《玩转21点》，该片改编自以真实故事为基础的畅销小说《攻陷拉斯维加斯》，讲述经过特殊训练的六位麻省理工高材生在拉斯维加斯豪赌二十一点，赢取三百多万美金的刺激故事。此后他又拍摄了与哈里森·福特等人一起出演的《穿越过境》。更重要的是，他得到了在票房大卖的影片《玩转21点》中担任主角的机会，他在片中扮演的麻省理工高材生，凭借着数学天赋在赌场里如鱼得水。此后他又主演了恐怖片《五十活死人》。2011年出演《one day》。

　　斯特吉斯的歌舞实力不俗，他还计划在朱丽·泰莫执导的音乐剧版《蜘蛛侠》中扮演彼特·帕克。

Spall, third of four sons, was born in Battersea, London; his father, Joe, was a postal worker, and his mother, Sylvia, a hairdresser. He trained at the National Youth Theatre and RADA, where he was awarded the Bancroft Gold Medal as the most promising actor in his year. His brother, Matthew, is studio director of the computer games company Morpheme.

Initially notable in the United Kingdom for playing the gormless Barry Taylor in all five series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Kevin in Outside Edge and as Aubrey the appalling chef in Mike Leigh's Life is Sweet, Spall has since appeared in films such as Crusoe, Secrets & Lies, Shooting the Past, Vanilla Sky, Rock Star, The Last Samurai, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and The King's Speech. He gained international recognition as Peter Pettigrew ("Wormtail") in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In 1991 he guest starred in the series 5 Red Dwarf episode Back to Reality. In 1993, Spall was in Rab C Nesbitt.

Spall performed lead vocals on the song The Devil Is An Englishman from the Ken Russell film Gothic (1986), in which Spall portrayed John William Polidori.

Spall played the starring role of Albert Pierrepoint in the 2005 film Pierrepoint, which was released as The Last Hangman in the United States. In the 2006 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Spall voiced Phil Collins' manager, Barry Mickelthwaite. In 2007, he starred as Nathaniel in Disney's Enchanted and Beadle Bamford in Tim Burton's production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. He also starred as Georgie Godwin in a one-off television drama The Fattest Man in Britain on ITV 1 which aired on the 20th December 2009. The drama also featured Bobby Ball, Frances Barber, Aisling Loftus, and Jeremy Kyle.

In 2010 he portrayed Winston Churchill in critically acclaimed film The King's Speech for which as a member of the ensemble he was jointly awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

On 31 December 1999, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).