His breakthrough role was in the romantic comedy, Chasing Liberty (2004), for which he received a nomination at Teen Choice Awards for Choice Breakout Movie Star - Male.
He then appeared in a string of supporting roles in films like Woody Allen's Match Point (2005), the German - British romantic comedy Imagine Me and You (2006), and the period drama Copying Beethoven (2006).
He's garnered praise for his performance as Charles Ryder in Julian Jarrold’s adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited (2008), and as Ozymandias in the American neo-noir superhero film Watchmen (2009), based on DC Comics' limited series of the same name.
He then starred in romantic comedy Leap Year (2010) and Australian drama Burning Man (2011), the latter earning him a nomination for Best Actor at the Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards.
Other notable film roles include The Lookout (2007), A Single Man (2009), Cemetery Junction (2010), Stoker (2013), Belle (2013), The Imitation Game (2014) and Self/less (2015).
His most notable television roles include Henry Talbot in the final season of historical period drama Downton Abbey, and Finley 'Finn' Polmar in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife.
He also had a lead role in the critically acclaimed British mini-serial Dancing on the Edge, as music journalist Stanley Mitchell, for which he earned a nomination for Best Actor in a Miniseries or a Television Film at the Satellite Awards.
In 2017, Goode portrayed Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon in the Netflix biographical drama series The Crown, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Star in a Drama Series. [2]
He currently stars in Sky One's fantasy-romance series, A Discovery of Witches, as Professor Matthew Clairmont and is filming Matthew Vaughn's Kingsman prequel, The King's Man.
They have two daughters, Matilda Eve Goode [3] (b. March 2009) and Teddie Eleanor Rose Goode (b. September 2013), and a son, Ralph Goode (b. August 2015).
Goode played Peter Lynley, the brother of Inspector Lynley in the BBC production Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Suitable Vengeance and co-starred in the TV film Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, based on the Gregory Maguire novel of the same name and William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
Goode is the youngest of five children with a brother, two half-brothers, and a half-sister, television presenter Sally Meen, from his mother's previous marriage.
Goode was educated at Exeter School, an independent school in Exeter, Devon, [4] followed by the University of Birmingham and London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.