Daniel Jonathan Stevens (born 10 October 1982) is an English actor. He first drew international attention for his role as Matthew Crawley in the ITV acclaimed period drama series Downton Abbey (2010–12). He also starred as David in the thriller film The Guest (2014), Sir Lancelot in the adventure film Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014), The Beast/Prince in Disney's live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (2017), Lorin Willis in the biographical legal drama Marshall (2017), and Charles Dickens in the biographical drama The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017). From 2017 to 2019, he has starred as David Haller in the FX series Legion. In 2018, he starred in the Netflix horror-thriller Apostle.
Stevens was adopted at birth, by parents who were both teachers, and grew up in Wales and southeast England. He has a younger brother who was also adopted. Stevens boarded on a scholarship at Tonbridge School, an independent school in Kent. There he became interested in drama after auditioning for the title role in Macbeth with his teacher, novelist Jonathan Smith. From the age of 15, he spent his summers training and performing with the National Youth Theatre in London.