Dark, lanky, and sad-eyed, Alfred Molina is one of Britain's most versatile character actors. Often appearing as a slightly sinister character of Middle Eastern (or Eastern European) origin, Molina has nonetheless graced the casts of films from almost every conceivable genre, a testament to both his ingenious adaptability and apparent willingness to try almost anything. The son of a Spanish waiter and an Italian housekeeper, Molina was born in London on May 24, 1953. Educated at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he began his career as one half of a street-corner comedy team but then turned to acting. While most thesps start at the bottom and ascend the ladder, Molina is an anomaly: he began at the top of the heap, first earning professional credibility (and his pedigree) as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and debuting cinematically in no less than Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), as the devious South American guide who leaves Harrison Ford for dead in an ancient temple before meeting his own end, courtesy of a particularly nasty booby trap. His subsequent resume for the rest of that decade reads like a "best of 1980s International Film": supporting roles in Mike Leigh's Meantime (1981), Peter Yates's Eleni (1985) , Richard Donner's Ladyhawke (1985),Chris Bernard's Letter to Brezhnev and Dusan Makavejev's Manifesto (1989), to name only a few.