Ian McNeice

Born: October 2 1950
Where: Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, UK

The veteran actor first attracted attention playing Fulton Greenwall opposite Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.

Subsequent roles - where he specialises in malevolent cherubs and corrupt clergyman - include Anazapta, From Hell and A Life Less Ordinary.

After attending Taunton School in Somerset, McNeice spent two years as an assistant stage manager at Salisbury Playhouse.

In 1971, he landed a place at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and went on to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company for four years, ending with a run on Broadway in Nicholas Nickleby.

Early TV work included Minder and Bergerac and he also appeared in the low-budget movies Voice Over and Top Secret!.

However, it was the role of Henry Harcurt in the TV conspiracy thriller Edge of Darkness that established the actor.

Movie roles followed in Whoops Apocalypse and 84 Charing Cross Road, Cry Freedom and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.

In 1989, he starred alongside Colin Firth in the romantic drama Valmont and appeared in John Le Carre's spy thriller The Russia House.

Extensive TV work, including The Cloning of Joanna May and Look At It This Way, followed and he went on to star alongside Lee Evans and Jerry Lewis in Funny Bones.

He appeared alongside Hugh Grant in The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain in 1995 and reached American audiences with Ace Ventura in 1995.

Switching between TV and film work, feature outings included A Life Less Ordinary and The Cherry Orchard.

In 2000, he achieved cult status with his portrayal of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in the TV miniseries Dune.

Big screen roles followed in Town & Country and he also played Martin Bormann's assistant in the BBC movie about the Final Solution, Conspiracy.

In 2001, he played Johnny Depp's helper in the Jack the Ripper story From Hell and played a crooked bishop in the medieval thriller Anazapta.

He took up the cloth again in the Peter O'Toole drama The Final Curtain and appeared in the British gangster comedy Chaos and Cadavers in 2003.

The same year he appeared in the Paul Kaye comedy Blackball and and the Charlotte Church comedy I'll Be There.

In 2004, he played Colonel Kitchener alongside Steve Coogan's Phileas Fogg in Around The World in Eighty Days.

Recent work includes the quizmaster in Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason and a father who contacts the dead in the thriller White Noise.