Alfred Molina

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Date of Birth : May 24th 1953

Tony Award-nominated English stage and film actor. He portrayed Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 as well as playing key roles in Not Without My Daughter, Chocolat, Frida and The Da Vinci Code.

Molina was born Alfredo Molina in London. His father was a Spanish Communist from Madrid who worked as a waiter and chauffeur, while his mother was an Italian housekeeper who also cleaned rooms in a hotel and worked as a cook. Molina grew up in a “working-class neighborhood” in Notting Hill that was inhabited by many other immigrant families. He wanted to become an actor after seeing Spartacus at the age of nine, and attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Molina made his film debut in the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, but his big break came with Letter to Brezhnev in 1985, which he followed up with a starring role in Prick Up Your Ears in 1987, playing Joe Orton’s lover Kenneth Halliwell.

Other films include Species, Dudley Do-Right, Chocolat, Not Without My Daughter, and Enchanted April. He has worked twice with Paul Thomas Anderson, first in Boogie Nights and then Magnolia. In 2002, Molina portrayed the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera alongside Salma Hayek in Frida. In 2003 he played himself alongside Steeve Coogan in Coffee and Cigarettes. In 2006, Molina portrayed Touchstone in Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The production played in theatres in Europe, but went straight to cable television in the U.S., premiering on HBO in August of 2007.