Patrick Bergin

Born: 4 February 1951
Where: Dublin, Ireland

The former mathematics teacher impressed international audiences as Julia Roberts' obsessive husband in the thriller Sleeping With The Enemy.

He is also infamous for being cast as villains - as a sexual predator in Lizzie Borden's Love Crimes and an IRA terrorist in Patriot Games.

The son of a theatre owner and brother of an actor, Bergin moved to London to learn to teach when he was 17 and set up his own theatre group.

During college, he worked as a postman and library assistant and later taught juvenile delinquents and children with learning disabilities for five years.

In 1980, he decided to act full time, with his feature debut in 1983's Those Glory, Glory Days and later appeared in Taffin with Pierce Brosnan.

Bergin came to prominence as 19th-century explorer Sir Richard Burton in Mountains Of The Moon and as psychopathic Martin Burney in Sleeping With The Enemy.

He portrayed a similarly seductive psycho in Love Crimes alongside Sean Young and then played the title character in the TV movie Robin Hood.

He co-starred in The Hummingbird Tree and Map of the Human Heart, before concentrating largely on TV roles throughout the 90s.

In 1999 he appeared alongside Rik Mayall and Tia Carrere in Merlin: The Return and in the action drama Africa opposite Greg Wise.

The following year he starred in When The Sky Falls, a movie that predated the dramatisation of Irish journalist Veronica Guerin with Cate Blanchett.

Bergin starred in the actioner High Explosive and the crime drama Cause of Death as well as The Invisible Circus with Cameron Diaz.

In 2001, his stock fell slightly when he was dispatched to Scotland to deal with the Loch Ness monster in the less-than-riveting Beneath Loch Ness.

Recent work includes the drama Silent Grace and the rom-com Elle Enchanted with Anne Hathaway, Minnie Driver and Joanna Lumley.