Joaquim de Almeida

Though he would tend the gardens at the Embassy of Zaire in Austria before testing his mettle as an actor, the Lisbon-born future star eventually set his sights on New York City. It was there that de Almeida first began to achieve fame as a performer in numerous New York Shakespeare Festival productions, with early roles in Miami Vice and The Soldier first bringing him to the attention of American viewers. Though indeed a skilled English-language performer, it was de Almeida's proficiency in Spanish, German, Italian, and French (in addition, of course, to his native Portuguese), that truly helped him to expand into the international film market. Throughout the 1990s, de Almeida's career continued to pick up steam thanks to performances in such widely seen efforts as Robert Rodriguez's Desperado and the sprawling miniseries Nostromo. In 1997, the actor found his continued efforts before the camera finally beginning to pay off when he was awarded a Portuguese Golden Globe for his spellbinding performance in the romantic drama Tentação. Though few would have the opportunity to see de Almeida exchange gunfire with Emilio Estevez in the hybrid spaghetti Western-Hong Kong action flick A Dollar for the Dead when the film proved dead on arrival, subsequent roles in Behind Enemy Lines and the 2003 miniseries Kingpin served well to keep him a recognizable international player.

In the early 2000s, it began to appear as if television was the medium in which de Almeida truly shined. If a recurring role as Ramon Salazar on Fox's 24 wasn't enough for viewers, de Almeida could also be spotted on The West Wing and Wanted. Subsequent performances in such features as The Celestine Prophecy and Moscow Zero -- as well as voice-over work in the controversial video game *Saints Row -- preceded a particularly heartfelt turn as painter Óscar Domínguez in the 2007 biopic Óscar -- El Color del Destino. ~ Jason Buchanan