From Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means

Charley Boorman was born on 23 August 1966, in Wimbledon, London. He is the son of costume designer Christel Kruse and famed director John Boorman, known for a huge number of classic feature films including as Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur, Hope and Glory, and The General.

He is one of seven children, and has a twin sister called Daisy. Charley is married to Olivia (known as Ollie), who he has known since he was 17. The couple have two daughters, Doone Yasmin, born in 1996 and Kinvara Atalanta, born in 1997.

Boorman has been riding motorcycles since he was seven years old. He grew up on a farm in Ireland and used to ride through the surrounding fields on his bike. Young Charley took part in motor cross and Enduro races as a school boy, and the first bike that he bought with his own money was a Yamaha DT 100.

He received an early start in the film business courtesy of his famous father. As a three year-old, he appeared in Deliverance and then in 1981, as young Mordred in Excalibur. He and best pal Ewan McGregor met when they both appeared in the 1997 film The Serpent's Kiss.

Charley's nickname as a child was Short Fuse. He’s become more laid-back and relaxed as an adult, though. He’s said that he thinks of his best pal Ewan McGregor as an extra sibling, stating that the Scotsman is the brother he always wanted as a child.

Little Charley also took the part of pageboy at the real-life wedding of Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand during the filming of Deliverance. When Bertrand gave birth to her second child in June 1975, an eight year-old Boorman ended up being one of the first people to hold baby Angelina Jolie in his arms.

Although he’s more regularly seen travelling with Ewan in shows like The Long Way Round, Charley has recently gone it alone in By Any Means. As the title suggests, the TV series saw Boorman travelling round the world by any means, including steam train, horse, boat, dugout canoe, cargo boat, motorcycle sidecar and tuk-tuk. In April 2008, he set off from his home town in County Wicklow, Ireland and ended up in Sydney, Australia.

Charley is a Unicef ambassador and a high-profile fundraiser and campaigner. On the By Any Means trip, he looked at Unicef projects in Borneo, and helped deliver vaccines for children in remote villages in Nepal. He has stated that having seen UNICEF's work for himself, he feels that it really does make a difference.

Becoming a motorbike rider gave young Charley extra confidence as a child - confidence he lacked a result of suffering from severe dyslexia. He also compensated for his learning difficulty by being the class clown, and has remarked that dyslexia has complicated his work as an actor as castings for parts frequently require sight-reading.

Boorman loves travelling, and especially likes to take to the road armed with all manner of gadgets, GPS and camping gear. He says that he doesn't get homesick as he’s roamed the globe all of his life, having continually travelled because of his father's job.