Born: March 30, 1950

Stocky Scottish comic actor Robbie Coltrane was trained as an artist in Glasgow. During the 1970s, he rose to prominence as an improvisational nightclub comedian, usually working in ensemble groups (one of his partners was actress Emma_Thompson). During the '80s, he was in a number of British features and made-for-TV movies. A regular at London's Comic Strip comedy club, he had a habit of appearing as himself in comedy specials like Secret_Policeman's_Third_Ball. He also showed up in small comedic cameos in National_Lampoon's_European_Vacation and Kenneth_Branagh's Henry_V. Though he was popular in the U.K. on TV shows like Alfresco, Tutti_Fruitti, Black_Adder, and The_Young_Ones, he wasn't widely known in the U.S. until his antic performance in Nuns on the Run with Eric_Idle. He then starred as the title character in the satiric comedy The_Pope_Must_Die (released in the U.S. as The_Pope_Must_Diet). In 1993, he starred in the British TV detective series Cracker as Fitz, a nervous forensic psychologist who helps crack cases. He won a BAFTA TV award for the role, and he won a Cable ACE award when it was rebroadcast in the U.S. on A&E. When the show ended, he briefly joined up with the James_Bond film series as Valentin Dmitrovich Zukovsky in GoldenEye and The_World_Is_Not_Enough. In the late '90s, he starred in a few independent films (Montana, Frogs for Snakes) and played Sgt. Peter Goldy in the Hughes brothers' thriller From_Hell. However, he's been most successful in the area of family entertainment. He was delightful as the con man in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with Elijah_Wood; he was Tweedledum to George_Wendt's Tweedledee in Alice in Wonderland; and he found a fine place for himself as Hagrid the Giant in the Harry_Potter film series. In 2002, he earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination from the British Academy for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In 2003, he returned to British TV to play lawyer Jack Lennox in The Planman. Andrea LeVasseur, Rovi

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