Vincent Cassel

Born: November, 1966
Where: Paris, France

If you are going to begin a distinguished acting career you might as well start it with a bang - as Cassel did with classic French art house flick La Haine.

The son of celebrated actor Jean-Pierre Cassel, at 17 he went to circus school and spent the next few years generally avoiding the acting scene.

He eventually took the plunge with a small part Les Clés Du Paradis and two years later he enjoyed his first collaboration with Matthieu Kassovitz in Metisse, an urban romantic comedy that cast Cassel as Kassovitz's older brother, a tough Jewish boxer.

Cassel again stepped in front of the camera for Kassovitz in La Haine in which he played a rough-hewn Jewish kid roaming the mean streets of Paris in the company of two friends and a gun.

The film was a surprise international success, winning a Best Director Award for Kassovitz at Cannes and a number of French Césars.

He began appearing in such English language productions as Merchant-Ivory's Jefferson in Paris and as the lead in a number of French films including L'Appartement (he would later marry co-star Monica Bellucci).

Both French and international productions followed with roles in Elizabeth and Birthday Girl opposite Nicole Kidman as well as kung-fu horror flick Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Cassel went on to star in the controversial French shocker Irreversible directed by Gaspar Noe.

Recent work includes Jan Kounen's supernatural western Blueberry.