Born in Maryhill, Glasgow, Scottish actor Robert Carlyle has repeatedly amazed audiences with his chameleon-like ability to inhabit a range of characters. Known for his commitment to roles, Carlyle has often altered his lifestyle and physical appearance to better understand a character. Before playing a homeless man, he went to live in the Waterloo area of London where the film was set; for a role as a bus driver, he passed the test for a PCV license in a Glasgow Leyland Atlantean bus.
Carlyle broke into the international eye in the 1996 Danny Boyle film Trainspotting. However, it was Carlyle's turn as the down-and-out Gaz in Peter Cattaneo's The Full Monty that brought him fully into the spotlight. The film was a sleeper hit, winning both box-office millions and five Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. Carlyle himself won the BAFTA award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for his performance and the cast won the SAG award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast.
Other notable works include Antonia Bird's Priest with Tom Wilkinson, the critically acclaimed and very controversial story of the moral struggles of a gay priest, in which he played the priest's lover; Alan Parker's adaptation of Frank McCourt's Pulitzer winning autobiography Angela's Ashes with Emily Watson; the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan; 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to Danny Boyle's zombie film directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, and the Emmy nominated television movie Hitler: The Rise of Evil, in the title role of Hitler.
In 2005, he was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for Human Trafficking, a Lifetime network movie dealing with the horrible reality of the buying and selling of young girls into prostitution. Carlyle starred as Dr. Nicholas Rush on the SyFy series Stargate Universe, a performance for which he won the 2010 Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role. Carlyle can also be seen as Rumpelstiltskin in the hit ABC series Once Upon A Time.
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