Mathieu Amalric
Born: October 25 1965
Where: Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
The actor and director landed one of the most coveted roles in cinema as a Bond villain in Quantum of Solace.
He plays Dominic Greene, a shady international fixer who comes up against Daniel Craig's 007 when he attempts to restore a Latin American dictator.
The actor had earlier attracted critical acclaim for his portrayal of stroke victim Jean-Dominique Bauby in director Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell & The Butterfly.
The son of left-wing French journalists (his father is French and his mother a Polish Jew from the same village as Roman Polanski), Amalric pursued an early career in film.
He made his big screen debut in 1984 in the French crime drama Les Favoris de la lune but switched careers to work as a trainee assistant director on Louis Malle's Au Revoir les Enfants in 1987.
He subsequently directed a number of films before winning a French Cesar at 30 for most promising actor in 1996's Ma vie sexuelle by the ultra-fashionable French director Arnaud Desplechin.
Regular acting work followed and in 2004 he picked up his second Cesar - for best actor - in Desplechin's critically-lauded comedy-drama Kings and Queen.
Subsequent appearances included the acclaimed I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed in 2005 and the role of a sleazy French Mossad agent in Steven Spielberg's Munich.
He had a minor role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and starred opposite Gerard Depardieu in the 2006 French musical drama The Singer.
The following year he starred in Julian Schnabel's life-affirming adapatation of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's autobiographical The Diving Bell & The Butterfly.
