 Formerly a teacher, this craggy-faced character actor began his career in the theatre, training for years at Manchester's Royal Exchange, the Bristol Old Vic, the Liverpool Everyman, and the RSC. A minor player in films during the '70s and '80s, he received critical praise for his role as an abusive father who features in a series of disturbing flashbacks in Terence Davies' Distant Voices Still Lives (UK/Germany, 1988). Building on this newfound status, he appeared memorably in international films such as Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (UK/US, 1990), the science-fiction thriller, Alien 3 (US, d. David Fincher, 1992) and the romantic epic, The Last of the Mohicans (US, d. Michael Mann, 1992). Postlethwaite finally achieved stardom in his late 40s as a more endearing brand of patriarch in In the Name of the Father (UK/Ireland/US, d. Jim Sheridan, 1993), earning an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor. Subsequent roles, including the conductor of a Yorkshire colliery band in Brassed Off (UK/US, d. Mark Herman, 1996), the villainous game hunter in Steven Spielberg's The Lost World (US, 1997) and Rachel Griffiths' love interest in Among Giants (d. Sam Miller, 1998), have confirmed his versatility. He was made an OBE in 2004. Melinda Hildebrandt, Encyclopedia of British Film
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