Born in 1978, Joe Absolom began acting in 1990 at age 11 in a peanut butter advertisement. After appearing in Antonia and Jane (1990) , he achieved fame as Matthew Rose in EastEnders (1985) in 1997 at age 18. After leaving EastEnders (1985) in 2000, he has appeared in Long Time Dead (2002), Extreme Ops (2002) and also popular television series Doc Martin (2004) and Vincent (2005) and most recently Personal Affairs (2009) .