Daniel Jonathan Stevens was born on October 10, 1982 in Croydon, Greater London (England). He was already performing on stage in theater productions during his school years. He was also a member of a local theater group while studying English Literature at Cambridge. 

From 2005, Stevens appeared regularly in theater, cinema and television productions. In Kai Wessel's film biopic "Hilde" (2009), he played the British actor David Cameron. His best-known roles include the lawyer Matthew Crawley in the series "Downton Abbey" (UK 2010-2012), the journalist Ian Katz in the Wikileaks drama "The Fifth Estate" (UK/BE 2013), the Beast in the fairytale film "Beauty and the Beast" (US 2017) and the "mutant" David Haller, main character of the series "Legion" (US 2017-2019), which is part of the “"X-Men" universe. 

Dan Stevens was nominated for the German Film Award in summer 2021 for his portrayal of a humanoid robot in Maria Schrader's "Ich bin dein Mensch" ("I'm Your Man", 2021). 

The following year, he played John Dean, Richard Nixon's legal advisor at the time of the Watwergate affair, in the streaming series "Gaslit" (US 2022). He had further roles in the sci-fi action film "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" (US 2024), in the horror film "Abigail" (US 2024) and, as a mockingly menacing antagonist, in the horror film "Cuckoo" (DE/US 2024), which premiered at the Berlinale 2024 and was released in cinemas in August 2024.