Linus Roache

Born: 1 February 1964
Where: Manchester, England

The actor is one of that select group of British actors that has made a successful hop across the pond to star in high-profile Hollywood fare.

He made a critical if controversial impact in America as a clergyman struggling with his vocation - and homosexuality - in Antonia Bird's Priest.

Outraged Christian groups boycotted the movie, some theatres received bomb threats and Disney still receives complaints from outraged critics.

Subsequent big-hitting roles have included Purifier in The Chronicles of Riddick and a mysterious government spook in The Forgotten.

The son of Coronation Street star William Roache (Ken Barlow) and actress Anna Cropper, as an 11-year-old he made his first appearance in the long-running soap.

For the next two decades he concentrated on stage work with the Royal Shakespeare Company before making his big screen debut in the Alan Bleasdale-scripted No Surrender in 1985.

After 1994's Priest - director Bird had spotted him at drama school - he put acting on the back burner and took time out in India where he discovered spiritual medidation.

In 1997, he teamed with Allison Elliott and Helena Bonham Carter as the journalist caught between the two in an adaptation of Henry James' novel The Wings of the Dove.

Lauren Bacall and Dennis Hopper were his co-stars in the drama The Venice Project and he went on to star in the comedy Siam Sunset.

Roache played footballer Denis Law in the George Best biopic Best and essayed the drug-crazed poet Coleridge in Pandaemonium in 2000.

In 2002, he appeared in World War II courtroom drama Hart's War, followed by a role alongside Angelina Jolie and Clive Owen in Beyond Borders.

He also played hostage John McCarthy opposite Ian Hart's Brian Keenan in the powerful drama Blind Flight.

Switching styles he starred alongside Vin Diesel in The Chronicles of Riddick and in Joseph Ruben's thriller The Forgotten with Julianne Moore.

In 2005, he starred as Batman's father Thomas Wayne in Christopher Nolan's rejuvenation of the franchis Batman Begins.

The following year he starred in the Sidney Lumet drama Find Me Guilty opposite Chronicles of Riddick star Vin Diesel and the American-Indian drama The Namesake.

Roache would stay with Indian themed movies for director Mahesh Mathai's thriller Broken Thread with Saffron Burrows and Santosh Sivan's Raj-set drama Before The Rains.