John Malkovich

Born: 9th December, 1953
Where: Christopher, Illinois

A truly international artist, American born Malkovich has adopted European bases in both France and Portugal.

In 1976, he joined Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, which was founded by his friend Gary Sinise.

Malkovich first gained attention for his performance in the Sam Shepard play Curse of the Starving Class in 1978 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre.

He later picked up an OBIE award in Shepard's True West and made his Broadway debut opposite Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman.

He entered film with two memorable roles in 1984: as an American photojournalist in The Killing Fields and as the blind boarder, Mr Will, in Places in the Heart.

He made the role of Vicomte de Valmont his own in Dangerous Liaisons and gave an Oscar-nominated turn as a cold-blooded assassin in Wolfgang Petersen's In the Line of Fire.

In 1993 he played assassin Mitch Leary in the action thriller In The Line Of Fire.

Con Air showed a lighter shade to his skills and a OTT villain and he then happily sent himself up in Spike Jonze's comically surreal Being John Malkovich.

Having settled his family far from Hollywood, in the south of France, he chose The Man in the Iron Mask and Luc Besson's The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Ark, with both movies not requiring him to stray far from home.

European art house productions including I'm Going Home and Savage Souls showed his interest in work a world away from the American mainstream.

His directorial debut - The Dancer Upstairs - about a South American terrorist group received positive reviews.

In front of the camera, he camped it up splendidly as the French megalomaniac in the Johnny English opposite Rowan Atkinson.

Recently, he replaced Matt Damon as and older, wiser Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game opposite Dougray Scott.