Philip Haywood Glenister is an English actor, known for his role as DCI Gene Hunt in the British television series Life on Mars and its sequel Ashes to Ashes. He also played DCI William Bell in State of Play (2003) and the Reverend Anderson in Outcast (2016–2018).

Glenister was born on 10 February 1963 in Harrow, Middlesex, and grew up in Hatch End. He is the son of director John Glenister and Joan Fry Lewis, and the younger brother of actor Robert Glenister.

He attended Hatch End High School.

Early in his career he worked as a messenger at Robert Stigwood's organisation. After that, until the age of 23, he worked as a film publicist, but became interested in acting after watching his brother perform in a student play about the Sex Pistols. With the support of his then sister-in-law Amanda Redman, he took up acting and enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama.