From Bad Boys To Julien Baptiste - The Tchéky Karyo Story

He was Hollywood's favourite bad guy. Now he's British TV's most sympathetic cop.

Tchéky Karyo - crazy name, crazy guy.

Depending on your age and taste, you'll either know him from his villainous turns in American blockbusters such as Bad Boys and The Patriot or you'll be familiar with his performances as empathetic French detective Julien Baptiste in the BBC's The Missing and its spin-off series Baptiste.

It's all a long way from Istanbul where Baruh Djaki Karyo was born on October 4th 1953 to a Greek mother and a father whose ancestors were Spanish Sephardic Jews. When the family later moved to Paris, Tchéky - the French translation of his middle name - fell in love with the theatre. After studying drama at the Cyrano School, Karyo joined the Daniel Sorano Company, then moved to the National Theatre of Strasbourg where he played many of the greatest roles in French and Shakespearean theatre.

As for film and television, Karyo got his first break courtesy of Daniel Vigne who cast him in 1982's The Return Of Martin Guerre. Just two short years later, he played the male lead in Eric Rohmer's Full Moon In Paris. It was his performance opposite the ursine stars of The Bear (1989) that put him on the international map, that and an eye-catching role in Luc Besson's hit-woman thriller Nikita. A move across the Atlantic, meanwhile, was made possible by Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest Of Paradise, the moribund Columbus epic which saw Karyo play ship owner Martin Pinzon opposite the biggest French star of the day, Gerard Depardieu.