Jamie Sives

Born: Edinburgh, Scotland

The actor landed his first big screen leading role in Danish director Lone Scherfig's tragi-comedy Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself.

"I didn't have any desire to be actor, until right before I did it," he once said - but also revealed he attended drama class in Glasgow in secret.

The wannabe footballer worked his way through a series of casual jobs, including a scaffolder and a pub doorman, before taking up a place at London's Drama Centre.

After graduating, he appeared on stage with Joseph Fiennes and appeared in the short Dead on Time with Michael Gambon.

Sives made his feature debut alongside Vinnie Jones in the prison comedy The Mean Machine where he was " paid to play football at last!"

He also had a minor role in Before You Go, the 2002 film about the lives of three sisters who are brought together at their mother's funeral, starring Julie Walters, Patricia Hodge, Tom Wilkinson and John Hannah.

In Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, he plays the suicidal title character who ends up falling in love with the same woman as his brother (Adrian Rawlins).

Recent work includes One Last Chance, which follows the story of three friends (also with Kevin McKidd and Dougray Scott, who find gold in the hands of a dead man in a remote Scottish town.