Dean Helliwell

Dean Westra Helliwell was born 24th April 1990 at RAF Akrotiri Hospital in Cyprus. His father, Eric Helliwell, is a army veteran who served with the Assault Pioneer Corps. His mother, Susan Helliwell is a business owner and manager within the hospitality industry. He is of English descent. Dean and his younger brother Rory Helliwell were brought up in Cumbria for the majority of their young life. He studied at Southfield Technology College and after his studies and troubles with delinquency he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and joined the military. After completing his training, he joined The Duke of Lancaster's Infantry Regiment and during his 6 years service he deployed to the front line in Afghanistan on operations, represented the army and his regiment in Rugby League and boxing in the UK and across the globe. During the last few years of his military career he struggled with alcohol abuse which later resulted in him being discharged from the military in 2012. After his departure from the military he decided to address his addiction and began his road to recovery. Over the next 7 years Dean had successfully overcome his alcoholism and began working in the charity sector. He was later recruited to run a fundraising department for a well known charity and moved to London to work for the organisation. This gave Dean the perfect opportunity to learn more about the performing arts industry and pursue the idea of becoming an actor. He soon began his acting lessons outside his day to day job and within 2 months had fallen in love with acting; leaving his job he fully committed to becoming a professional working actor. Dean trained for screen acting at City Lit in London and was taught by fellow actor and friend Gary Grant. Not long after completing his training he became a member of the Soldier's Arts Academy and landed his first acting role in Shakespeare and Remembrance, an incredibly emotional ensemble collaboration between Shakespeare's Globe and The Soldier's Arts Academy commemorating the centenary of the Armistice. Dean's Big theatre role was in the UK and Canada theatre tour in the hit WestEnd Play Soldier On as the character Flaps in (2019). Since then he has also worked with October films on 2 TV Doc-series; as Byron in The Killer Beside Me (2019) and Jeff in The heart of Darkness (2018). He performed in and provided VO for the short film For My Daughter by Joshua Paul (2019), as well as performing in the short film Gloom as a Gestapo Agent directed by a new up and coming director Andreas Gregoras. Dean performed in and provided Vo for the short film Tsunami as SFO Niall directed by Alissa Autschbach (2020) and as Jojo in the Damon Runyon Project directed by Paul Higgins and Sasha Alexander (2020). Although he originally trained for screen acting his versatility has allowed him to work on screen and stage. In his spare time he pursues numerous hobbies and passions including running, boxing and rugby league. He also travels back to Cumbria to spend time with his friends and family, at every opportunity.