Jonny Lee Miller

Born: 1972
Where: Kingston, Surrey, UK

If you are an actor starting at the bottom then you are not going to get much further down the thespian ladder than acting as a theatre usher.

Miller, the grandson of actor Bernard Lee (M in the Bond films), has delivered impressive performances in a handful of features and TV projects.

He made his feature acting debut as a computer genius who takes on a corporate evildoer in Iain Softley's Hackers and was then cast as the heroin-addicted Sick Boy in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting in 1996.

Moving from contemporary times, the actor delivered a thoughtful, intense performance as a working-class soldier struck mute by the horrors of WWI in Regeneration.

He fared less well, seemingly miscast as an ambitious twentysomething who obsesses with his career and is clueless to his wife's frustrations in Alan Rudolph's Afterglow.

Away from the big screen, he has enjoyed a colourful love life, including marriage to Angelina Jolie and flings with TV presenter Lisa Faulkner, singer Natalie Appleton and actress Jennifer Espisito.

Woody Allen cast Jonny in his movie Melinda & Melinda in a role that called for an American accent - he duly obliged, playing the New York yuppie with ease. Miller can next be scene in slick thriller Mindhunters with Val Kilmer and Christian Slater.