Peter Mullan

Born: 1954
Where: Glasgow, UK

Teenage wannabe director Mullan put his first love on hold when he was rejected by the National Film School.

Instead, he racked up an impressive array of acting parts, including Ken Loach's Riff-Raff, Mel Gibson's Braveheart and Danny Boyle's Trainspotting.

His acting highpoint came when he landed the best actor award at Cannes for his role as Joe in Loach's My Name is Joe.

Mullan starred opposite Saffron Burrows in Miss Julie, with Kevin Spacey in Ordinary Decent Criminal and in Michael Winterbottom's The Claim.

However, he had also been pursuing a parallel career as a director after debuting with the short film Close in 1993.

Good Day for the Bad Guys followed in 1995 and Fridge in 1996 before his first feature - the acclaimed Orphans.

TV work also included BBC drama Cardiac Arrest, Taggart and Rob C Nesbitt with Gregor Fisher.

Mullan's work as a director - the contentious The Magdalene Sisters - won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

In 2003, he played aid worker in Emily Young's debut feature Kiss of Life and also starred alongside Ewan NcGregor in the Scottish drama Young Adam.

Recent work includes the con movie Criminal, based on the Argentinian movie Nine Queens.