Short Summary – Simon Bird is 42 now. The bloke who played Will McKenzie in The Inbetweeners is about to be in a Star Wars film alongside Ryan Gosling. If you’d said that to him in 2008, when The Inbetweeners started, you probably would have got a laugh out of him, as he would have thought you were having him on. Yet fast-forward to December 2025, and here we are: Simon Bird has well and truly established a career that’s extended far beyond “briefcase wanker.”
How Inbetweeners Made Him?
Bird was the third of four kids, born August 19, 1984, in Guildford, Surrey. His parents were professors at Claremont McKenna College. He read English at Queen’s College, Cambridge, and became president of Footlights. There he would meet Joe Thomas, who played Simon Cooper on The Inbetweeners. The show was broadcast on E4 from 2008 to 2010.
Posh kid Will McKenzie, who was desperately attempting to fit in with his new comprehensive schoolmates, became a legend. Bird won the 2008 British Comedy Award for Best Male Newcomer and the 2009 award for Best Actor.
In 2010, he received a nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Simon Bird’s movies and TV shows from that era include the two Inbetweeners films in 2011 and 2014. The films were money machines. That first one shattered box office records for a comedy. The second one was less successful but still had a good showing.
Also read: When Did Oasis Last Play Wembley? That Final Night Before Everything Fell Apart
Friday Night Dinner
From 2011 to 2020, Bird starred as Adam Goodman in Friday Night Dinner, alongside Tom Rosenthal, Tamsin Greig and the late Paul Ritter.
The Channel 4 sitcom followed the chaotic Goodman family during their regular Friday-night dinners and became another important part of Bird’s television career.
Bird continued to work across acting, writing, comedy and directing after the series ended.
He co-created Chickens, a sitcom about men left behind in England during the First World War, and later appeared in Everyone Else Burns, playing David Lewis.
Bird also performed his stand-up project Debrief in 2022, although it was described by Chortle as being closer to an experimental film than a conventional stand-up special.
Is The Inbetweeners 3 Now in Production?
This is the biggest update to Bird’s career since the original version of this article was written.
Netflix officially announced on September 7, 2026, that production had begun in the UK on The Inbetweeners 3.
Bird is returning as Will McKenzie, with the original central cast also back:
- Simon Bird as Will McKenzie
- Joe Thomas as Simon Cooper
- James Buckley as Jay Cartwright
- Blake Harrison as Neil Sutherland
Original creators Damon Beesley and Iain Morris are returning to write and direct the film.
The announcement comes more than a decade after The Inbetweeners 2, released in 2014, and 16 years after the original television series ended.
Netflix has already released a teaser showing the four characters back together, including Simon’s familiar yellow Fiat.
A release date has not yet been announced.
Going Behind the Camera
Simon Bird is British, but his work has taken him places. In 2015, he and Jonny Sweet founded Guilty Party Pictures, backed by StudioCanal. In 2022, they set up People Person Pictures in partnership with BBC Studios. Bird’s directed loads. Series 3 of Pls Like.
The first series of Ellie & Natasia. Multiple episodes of Such Brave Girls for the BBC, which The Guardian called “hands down the funniest British comedy of the year” in 2023.
He produced A Whole Lifetime With Jamie Demetriou for Netflix, which won the Rose d’Or for Best Comedy Entertainment. He produced How Europe Stole My Mum, which The Guardian described as “nothing short of a miracle.” His directing work is getting noticed. The Telegraph’s theatre critic praised his performance in The Philanthropist in 2017, saying he “delivers the goods by subtle, incremental means.”
Also read: When Your Childhood Telly Star Ends Up on the Streets: What’s Happened to Tylor Chase?
The Star Wars Gig
In August 2025, Lucasfilm announced Bird had joined the cast of Star Wars: Starfighter. Production kicked off in the UK with Ryan Gosling, Amy Adams, Matt Smith, Mia Goth, Aaron Pierre, Daniel Ings, Flynn Grey, and Jamael Westman. The film is set five or six years after The Rise of Skywalker. It’s an original story in an era never shown on screen before.
Matt Smith and Mia Goth are playing villains. Shawn Levy, who directed Deadpool & Wolverine, is directing. British fans immediately joked that Bird should voice a droid or have a briefcase scene.
Some say he’s taken a leaf out of the book of British comic actors like Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade, who’ve also done voice work in Star Wars projects. The film releases on May 28, 2027. That leaves Bird enough time to complete his other efforts before marketing a gigantic blockbuster.
His Other Film Project
In April 2025, it was announced that Matthew Broderick, Sally Hawkins, and Martin Freeman had signed on for Bird’s latest directorial feature, Pretend I’m Not Here. It’s set during World War II, about an ordinary couple who offer refuge to a Jewish perfume salesman during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
The film is a Parkville Pictures and Lemming Film co-production developed with BBC Film.
Cornerstone launched international sales at Cannes. It’s described as a “compelling and comedic exploration of human relationships tested by extraordinary circumstances.” So Bird’s directing a serious historical dramedy whilst also appearing in a Star Wars film. That’s the range.
Also read: Martha Stewart’s Money: From Billionaire to Prison to $400 Million Comeback
His Personal Life
Simon Bird’s wife is Lisa Owens. They married in 2012 after meeting at Cambridge University whilst performing a comedy sketch together.
Bird proposed in Paris in 2011. Lisa’s a scriptwriter. Her 2017 book Not Working was praised by the Observer as laugh-out-loud funny. Bird adapted her graphic novel into the 2019 film Days of the Bagnold Summer. They’ve got two children and live in London.
They keep family life private, though Bird told The Times last year they’d implemented a “travel ban” after recognising the stress of holidaying with young kids.
Net Worth and Social Media
Simon Bird’s net worth isn’t publicly confirmed, but between The Inbetweeners films, Friday Night Dinner, his production companies, and directing work, he’s done alright.
Several celebrity-wealth websites currently estimate his fortune at around $8 million, but these figures are estimates rather than verified financial disclosures.
Add a Star Wars film to that, and the number only goes up. Simon Bird’s Instagram exists, but he’s not massively active on social media. He’s more focused on the work itself than on building an online presence.
The Inbetweeners Is Officially Back
It isn’t known as of yet whether it is a TV series, a limited special, or a feature film. The series creators, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, made a deal with Banijay UK. The original cast, which includes Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison, will all be returning. It isn’t known as of yet whether it is a TV series, a limited special, or a feature film.
Insiders suspect it will be set when the characters are middle-aged men juggling marriages, kids, and careers. All four actors are fathers now. The internet went wild with the news. The Inbetweeners is one of the most popular British sitcoms of the 21st century. In 2019, The Guardian ranked it number 74 in its list of the best 100 TV shows of the 21st century.
From Will McKenzie to a Much Bigger Career
Simon Bird could easily have been typecast as Will McKenzie forever.
Instead, his career has expanded across acting, comedy, writing, directing and producing.
He went from playing an awkward teenager in The Inbetweeners to starring in Friday Night Dinner, leading Everyone Else Burns, directing Such Brave Girls and developing feature films.
And now he is returning to the role that made him famous.
At 42, Bird’s career is therefore in an interesting place: he is revisiting his most famous character while continuing to build a career behind the camera.
Not bad for the bloke who once spent his school days worrying about briefcases, bus journeys and fitting in.
Also Read: Erin Patterson
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Simon Bird?
Simon Bird was born on August 19, 1984, making him 42 years old in 2026.
Is Simon Bird returning for The Inbetweeners 3?
Yes. Simon Bird is returning as Will McKenzie in The Inbetweeners 3, which officially entered production in September 2026.
Is Simon Bird still in Star Wars: Starfighter?
Bird was originally announced for Star Wars: Starfighter, but his name was later removed from Lucasfilm’s official cast listing. His current involvement has not been officially clarified.
What is Simon Bird’s net worth?
Simon Bird’s exact net worth has not been publicly confirmed. Some celebrity-wealth websites estimate it at around $8 million, but this should be treated as an unofficial estimate.
Leave a Reply