Stephen MacKintosh

Born: 30 April 1967
Where: Cambridge, England, UK

The actor - who specialises in roles ranging from villains to transsexuals -made his breakthrough as Charlie Hero in Hanif Kureishi's TV drama The Buddha of Suburbia.

As a child actor, he made his professional debut aged 12 at London's Bush Theatre, and a year later enrolled in The Sylvia Young Theatre School in London.

Soon after, he was cast as Nigel, the glue-sniffing, exercised-obsessed friend of the title character in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4.

Mackintosh's career received a further boost when he landed the role of Eugene Jerome in the London premiere of Neil Simon's autobiographical Brighton Beach Memoirs.

The actor made his debut in a bit part as actor Simon Ward in the Joe Orton biopic 1987's Prick Up Your Ears, and appeared as a rookie crewman in Memphis Belle.

Alternating between films and TV, Mackintosh has created a host of fascinating characters ranging from a drug dealer in London Kills Me to a glam rocker in the miniseries The Buddha of Suburbia.

He was also cast as Sebastian in Trevor Nunn's film version of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

One of his best roles was as the transsexual Kim (formerly Karl) in Different for Girls.

He played a rural farm worker who dreams of enlisting as a pilot in the WWII-era The Land Girls, and offered an amusing turn as the owner of a cannabis factory in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

In 2003 he was cast alongside Anne Reid in British drama The Mother.