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Dark, lanky, and sad-eyed, Alfred Molina is one of Britain's most versatile and woefully underappreciated actors. Featured in a series of films whose only common denominator is their wide diversity, Alfred Molina has been cast in films of almost every conceivable genre, a testament to both his great adaptability and apparent willingness to try almost anything.
The son of a Spanish waiter and an Italian housekeeper, Alfred Molina was born in London on May 24, 1953. Educated at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he began his career as one half of a street-corner comedy team before earning professional credibility as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He made his first memorable film appearance in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), playing the devious South American guide who leaves Harrison Ford for dead in an ancient temple before meeting his own end courtesy of a particularly nasty booby trap.
Alfred Molina next film of note was Stephen Frears' Prick up Your Ears (1987); based upon the life of playwright Joe Orton (played in the film by Gary Oldman), it cast Alfred Molina as Kenneth Halliwell, Orton's lover and eventual murderer. Practically unrecognizable as the bald, severely unhinged Halliwell, the actor was at once terrifying and pathetic, earning a number of positive notices for his performance. He gave a similarly disturbing performance in Not Without My Daughter (1990), playing the tyrannical Iranian husband of an American woman (Sally Field).
Alfred Molina gave more sympathetic portrayals in such films as Mike Newell's Enchanted April (1992), Species (1995), and The Perez Family (1995), the last of which featured him as a Cuban immigrant struggling to make a new life for himself in Miami. However, some of his most impressive work can be found in films in which he is cast as a man dabbling in the outer realms of insanity, as with Alfred Molina's turn as a deranged playboy in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997) ably demonstrated. He further showcased his capacity for dastardly behavior as the resident villain of Dudley Do-Right in 1999, the same year that he again worked with Anderson, appearing in the director's ensemble-driven Magnolia.
Though the next few years would be marked by a couple of unsuccessful forays into the television sitcom genre, Alfred Molina also found himself garnering positive responses for roles in such films as 2000's Chocolat and 2002's Frida, the latter of which netted him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his portrayal of chronically unfaithful painter Diego Rivera. Alfred Molina's biggest mainstream role to date, however, would come in 2004. That year saw him cast as the infamous Doc Oc in the critically-acclaimed box-office smash Spider-Man 2. Considered by some to be the greatest example of the superhero genre ever produced, no small amount of the rave reviews given to the film were directed at Alfred Molina for his spot-on portrayal of the miniacal comic-book villain.
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