Made stage debut in "Hay Fever" with Bristol Old Vic company; company member for three years

London stage debut as John the Baptist in "Godspell," Round House Theatre (later at Wyndham's Theatre for two years)

TV debut as Franz Liszt in BBC miniseries "Notorious Woman" (shown on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre" November-December of same year)

Breakthrough TV role, Charles Ryder in "Brideshead Revisited"

Film debut as Mikhail Fokine in "Nijinsky"

Cast opposite Meryl Streep in "The French Lieutenant's Woman"

Co-starred with Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge in "Betrayal"

Broadway debut in "The Real Thing"

Starred in "Swann in Love", adapted from Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu"

Directed video for Carly Simon's song "Tired of Being Blonde"

Teamed opposite Robert De Niro in "The Mission"

Breakthrough screen role, played twins in David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers"

Earned acclaim and a Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Claus von Bulow in "Reversal of Fortune"

Cast in title role of Stephen Soderbergh's "Kafka"

Played a cheating spouse in "Damage"

Acted the role of a French diplomat who falls in love with a Chinese performer who harbors a secret in "M Butterfly"; second film with Cronenberg

Voiced the villainous Scar in Disney's "The Lion King"

Played the villain in "Die Hard With a Vengeance"

Cast as a dying writer in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Stealing Beauty"

Portrayed Humbert Humbert in Adrian Lyne's remake of "Lolita"; released in the USA in 1998

Offered a fine turn as the swashbucling Aramis, one of the original Musketeers, in "The Man in the Iron Mask"

Co-starred in the British TV drama "Longitude", written and directed by Charles Sturridge

Offered over-the-top villainous turn in "Dungeons and Dragons"

Cast opposite Forest Whitaker in "The Fourth Angel"

Co-starred with Fanny Ardant in "Callas Forever"

Joined co-star Patricia Kaas for the feature "And Now Ladies and Gentlemen"

Cast in "Being Julia" which centers around stage actors and their experiences with love and revenge in 1930's London

Cast opposite Al Pacino and Joseph Fiennes in "The Merchant of Venice" a Shakespearian adaptation, set in 16th century Venice

Starred in Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" about the 12th-century Crusades

Co-starred as in Lasse Hallström's "Casanova," opposite Heath Ledger

Offered an award winning performance opposite Helen Mirren in "Elizabeth I" a joint HBO/Channel 4 production

Cast as Brom, a former Dragon Rider in "Eragon" a fantasy/adventure movie based on the novel of the same name