Joaquim DeAlmeida

Born: 1957
Where: Lisbon, Portugal

The suave Portuguese star has made a virtue of playing lovers, revolutionaries or killers.

He can act in his native tongue as well as Spanish, Italian, French, English, and German and, as one casting director noted: "He's not that tall. He's not that handsome...but listen to that voice."

De Almeida first won notice opposite Klaus Kinski and Ken Wahl in the violent actioner The Soldier in 1982 and in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Good Morning Babylon in 1986.

But it was 1994 before American audiences - and Hollywood - began to put De Almeida on their lists after he played cold-hearted murderer Felix Cortez in Clear and Present Danger.

The role of Giovanni, the Italian gigolo romancing Bonnie Hunt, in Only You followed and he also featured in Robert Rodriguez's Desperado as the drug lord antagonist.

He played the duplicitous Admiral Piquet in Behind Enemy Lines and recently starred in Spanish sci-fi thriller Stranded and French actioner Sueurs.

Can also be seen in French/Romanian thriller Break of Dawn.