Robert Carlyle | Rotten Tomatoes (2024)

Despite a warm, genial personality, actor Robert Carlyle made a career out of playing dark, crazed and often brutally violent characters, but none more vivid and visceral than the sociopathic Begbie in his breakout film, "Trainspotting" (1996). Prior to his international breakthrough, Carlyle spent three seasons as the star of the police series "Hamish Macbeth" (BBC Scotland, 1995-98), while appearing in a number of British-made films. After "Trainspotting," however, Carlyle did an about-face to play a down-and-out steelworker who marshals his fellow out-of-work mates to earn cash by staging an all-male strip review in the critically heralded comedy "The Full Monty" (1997). Following a sympathetic turn in "Angela's Ashes" (1999), he was arch-villain Renard to Pierce Brosnan's James Bond in "The World is Not Enough" (1999) and a crazed man ranting about a hidden paradise in Danny Boyle's "The Beach" (2000). He went on to brilliantly portray the Führer in "Hitler: The Rise of Evil" (2003) and a powerful sex trafficker in "Human Trafficking" (Lifetime Television, 2005). On the small screen, he continued delivering the goods as a mad scientist on "Stargate Universe" (Syfy, 2009-2011) and the Machiavellian Rumpelstiltskin on "Once Upon a Time" (ABC, 2011- ). No matter what type of role he played, Carlyle fully inhabited each character with such force and conviction that he developed a solid reputation for being one of the most electrifying performers on either side of the Atlantic.