Films: Silent Scream 1990 Riff Raff 1990 Safe 1993 Being Human 1994

Films: Silent Scream (1990), Riff Raff (1990), Safe (1993), Being Human (1994), Priest (1994), Trainspotting (1995), Carla's Song (1996), Go Now (1996), Face (1997), The Full Monty (1997) and `Plunkett & Macleane' (1998). Three seasons of Hamish Macbeth on BBC1 (1994-1997)Awards: 1995 Scottish Bafta for Hamish Macbeth, a Royal Television Society Award in 1996 for Go Now and Hamish Macbeth; Variety Club film actor of the Year, Bafta and Evening Standard Award winner in 1998 for The Full Monty. OBE, January 1999.He says: "The work is all that matters."On journalists who don't agree: "If any of them are ever in my company, I'll definitely attack them.". THERE IS a long and honourable tradition of eccentric minor characters in a sitcom becoming popular in their own right. Sometimes, in the accepted parlance, they "spin off" into their own shows. Dr Frasier Crane was originally introduced into the Eighties sitcom Cheers to give Ted Danson's Boston barman some competition in his will they/ won't they romance with Shelley Long's barmaid.

Fifteen years later, Frasier is the most popular sitcom on American television. Ted Danson's and Shelley Long's careers have long since stalled. There are many such examples, but Cosmo Kramer is not going to be one of them. Michael Richards, who played Jerry Seinfeld's wild-eyed neighbour since the show's inception in 1990, has not only turned his back on his Seinfeld character; he has also, apparently shorn off the trademark shock of hair (admittedly for a TV role; he's been playing Mr Micawber in a new production of David Copperfield). Mind you, he can afford to. Since a pay hike in 1997, Richards, along with his co-stars Jason Alexander (George) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine), has been earning $600,000 an episode They make 21 episodes a year.

You do the maths.So how did a minor character, Jerry's gangly, ungainly neighbour with his Hawaiian shirts, mad hair and habit of sliding into Jerry's flat unannounced (Richards apparently perfected that sliding entrance while he was still at school) become such a hero? A cult hero in this country, perhaps, but a genuinely popular one in the States.Sky television recently showed the final double episode of Seinfeld for British viewers (Americans saw it last year) If you don't want to know what happens, look away now I said now. Mother (Elizabeth) worked for the bus company, father (Joseph) was a painter and decorator.Education: Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, 1983-86.Vital statistics: Married since 1997 to Anastasia Shirley, a make-up artist.Career: Painter and decorator until 1983 Formed Raindog theatre company in 1991. Those who comprise our less regular output of working-class heroes (Ewan McGregor and Gary Oldman, for instance) have succumbed to the lure of the LA lifestyle and big-budget, dumb-ass movies with embarrassing enthusiasm.At the moment, however, it's difficult to imagine Robert Carlyle following Oldman's example of moving to Beverly Hills, marrying and divorcing Uma Thurman, and throwing pool parties staffed by legions of strippers. As long as it stays that way, British audiences, critics - and indeed the Prime Minister - will continue to think highly of him.Life StoryOrigins: Born 14 April 1961 in Glasgow. Renard the assassin is a former French Foreign Legion officer with a bullet that has lodged in his brain and makes him insensitive to pain.

In a twist on Blofeld's fluffy cat, the character carries a hawk trained to gouge out the eyes of his enemies. Carlyle acts opposite Sophie Marceau (who appeared as Princess Isabelle in Braveheart), and his fellow Scot Robbie Coltrane. With John Cleese also a member of the cast, and a plot that's rumoured to involve the blowing up of the Millennium Dome, it's hard to imagine how Carlyle will avoid compromising his reputation as a purveyor of down-to-earth and thoughtful performances.Recently, the UK has produced a healthy quota of world-class leading men, but they tend to be soppy posh boys (the Fiennes brothers, Hugh Grant, Daniel Day-Lewis) or craggy character players (Pete Postlethwaite, Ian McKellen, Ray Winstone). The film's connection with the world's favourite Scot Nat, Sean Connery, might reassure Carlyle, should he wake up in the middle of the night worrying about the "social worth" of a film as brazenly empty-headed as an 007 actioner.But his role promises to be out-and-out camp of a sort with which, in the past, he has been uncomfortable about associating himself.

Even so, he certainly won't be following the example of his fellow Trainspotting alumnus and Loach-acolyte Peter Mullan, who recently cosied up with the Scottish Socialist Party. Carlyle may deflect journalists' questions about devolution, but he takes his Scottishness seriously enough to remain resident in Glasgow, and to have turned down roles in cod-Caledonian epics such as Rob Roy and Braveheart.But how long can he hold out against Hollywood? He's rumoured to have pocketed pounds 1m for his role as Renard, the assassin-villain of The World is Not Enough, and the offers will only multiply once the film has been released internationally. In Antonia Bird's Face, we were asked to believe in Carlyle as Ray, a socialist activist who'd lost his ideals and somehow wound up as a cock-a-knee gangster of the sub-Minder variety. It was a painfully thin notion made all the more ludicrous by the presence of a poster for Ken Loach's Land and Freedom on Ray's bedroom wall.Politically, Carlyle is disillusioned.