Career
Carlyle became involved in drama at the Glasgow Arts Centre at the age of 21 (having been inspired by reading Arthur Miller's The Crucible), and subsequently graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In 1991, he and four friends founded a theatre company, Raindog (which is now primarily involved in television and film work), and guest starred in The Bill. The same year he starred in his first movie, Riff-Raff, directed by Ken Loach.
In 1994, he played the gay lover of Father Greg in the film Priest. Carlyle's first high-profile role came as murderer Albert "Albie" Kinsella in an October 1994 episode of Cracker opposite Robbie Coltrane (in which Kinsella killed five people, including Christopher Eccleston's DCI David Bilborough). This highly acclaimed role showcased Carlyle's "pure intensity". Shortly after his appearance in Cracker, he landed the role of Highland policeman Hamish Macbeth in the BBC comedy-drama Hamish Macbeth. The series ran for three seasons from 1995 to 1997.
In 1996 and 1997, he appeared in the two highest-profile roles of his career to date: as the psychopathic Francis Begbie in Trainspotting and Gaz, the leader of a group of amateur male strippers, in The Full Monty, the latter earning Carlyle a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also starred with Ray Winstone in the 1997 film Face. Carlyle played the senior Malachy McCourt (father of author Frank McCourt) in the 1999 film adaptation of McCourt's first memoir, Angela's Ashes, the arch villain Renard in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, and a cannibalistic soldier in the 1999 Ravenous.
Carlyle appeared in the 2002 Oasis music video for "Little By Little". He played Adolf Hitler in the 2003 miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil. In 2006 he played the villain Durza in Eragon. In 2007 Carlyle played one of the main characters in the film 28 Weeks Later. He also played the lead role as a marine engineer, attempting to save London from total devastation in the disaster film Flood. That year he also portrayed Father Joseph Macavoy in the film The Tournament.
In 2008 Carlyle narrated a BBC audiobook version of The Cutting Room. In 2008, Carlyle was cast as Dr. Nicholas Rush in the television series Stargate Universe. His involvement has been described thus, "As to survive, Dr. Rush (Carlyle) works to unlock the mysteries of the ship and return the group home, but evidence of his ulterior motives soon arises." Carlyle was touted by the studio as the "leading role" in Universe.
In December 2008, Carlyle appeared in 24: Redemption, a television movie of the popular series 24, starring alongside Kiefer Sutherland.
In 2009, Carlyle appeared in a long-form commercial for Johnnie Walker whisky, titled "The Man Who Walked Around The World", that showed Carlyle walking down a path and talking for six minutes in a single long take. The ad took two days to film. The director, Jamie Rafn, afterwards referred to Carlyle as an "utter genius". He voices the character of Gabriel Belmont, and his counterpart, the immortal Count Dracula in the video game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, released in 2010.
Beginning in October 2011 Carlyle portrayed Rumpelstiltskin in the fantasy-drama series Once Upon A Time. His recurring role is based not only on the story of Rumpelstiltskin, but also on the Beast in the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast. His character is actually a wizard who is also a deal maker and master manipulator of the other characters.
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Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
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“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
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