Sebastian Roché

Sebastian Roché is a French-American actor born on 4 August 1964 in Paris. His mother, Gail, was Scottish by birth with the maiden name Stewart, and his father, Philippe Roché, was French. Between the ages of 12 and 18, Roché lived aboard a sailboat with his family, traveling through the Mediterranean, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. He received his formal education at the Lycée International de St Germain en Laye and subsequently trained at the Cours Florent in Paris, the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre, and the French National Academy of Dramatic Arts, known as CNSAD, from which he graduated in 1989. He speaks five languages fluently: French, English, German, Spanish, and Italian. Roché relocated to New York City in 1992.

His acting career began in 1986 with the CBS television film The Murders in the Rue Morgue, in which he appeared alongside Ian McShane and Val Kilmer. Through the late 1980s he worked in French television and cinema, with credits including the films Adieu je t'aime (1988), La Queue de la comète (1988), La Révolution française (1989), and A Woman's Revenge (1990), as well as the television series Bonjour maître (1987) and The Hitchhiker (1989–1991).

After moving to New York, Roché built a substantial classical theatre background. In 1992 he starred in Salome alongside Al Pacino at the Circle in the Square Theatre. He then appeared in Titus Andronicus (1994) with the Theatre for a New Audience, directed by Julie Taymor, and in Macbeth (1994) at the Classic Stage Company, directed by Jack Stehlin. In 1995 he performed in Arms and the Man in Hartford, Connecticut, under the direction of Mark Lamos. In 1998 he appeared in an Off-Broadway production of Trainspotting at the Players Theater. In 2000, Roché made his Broadway debut in The Green Bird at the Cort Theatre, portraying Prince Renzo. The production marked his second collaboration with director Julie Taymor.

His film work began with a supporting role in the Daniel Day-Lewis historical epic The Last of the Mohicans, released in the United States on 25 September 1992. Subsequent film credits include The Peacemaker (1997), 15 Minutes (2001), the miniseries Earthsea (2004), Sorry, Haters (2005), The Namesake (2006), directed by Mira Nair and released on 9 March 2007, and New York City Serenade (2007), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September 2007. He appeared in the Robert Zemeckis motion-capture film Beowulf (2007) alongside Anthony Hopkins and Angelina Jolie, and reprised his role as Wulfgar in the accompanying video game Beowulf: The Game, released on 13 November 2007. Additional film credits include Happy Tears (2009) with Demi Moore and Parker Posey, Safe House (2012) with Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington, Wer (2013), A Walk Among the Tombstones (2014) with Liam Neeson, and We Love You, Sally Carmichael! (2017). He also lent his voice to Steven Spielberg's animated film The Adventures of Tintin, released on 21 December 2011.

On American television in the 1990s, Roché appeared in Loving (1992), South Beach (1993), New York Undercover (1996), Swift Justice (1996), Liberty! (1997), and Law & Order (1993 and 1999). In 1997 he joined the main cast of the Fox fantasy series Roar, playing Saint Longinus opposite Heath Ledger and Vera Farmiga; the series was cancelled that same year due to low ratings. He also had credits in Feds (1997), Dellaventura (1997), Sex and the City (1998), and Merlin (1998). In 2000 he appeared in the A&E television film The Crossing opposite Jeff Daniels, which aired on 10 January 2000.

Beginning in 2002, Roché portrayed Kurt Mendel in the Showtime science fiction series Odyssey 5, a role he held until the show's cancellation the following year. In 2007 he joined the cast of the ABC soap opera General Hospital as Jerry Jacks, a role he played across 319 episodes, delivering dialogue in Russian, Spanish, and French throughout the series. In 2009 he guest starred in The Mentalist as Shirali Arlov and appeared as John Quinn in both 24: Redemption (2008) and the 2009 season of 24. In 2010 he joined the recurring cast of Supernatural on The CW, appearing in six episodes of the sixth season as Balthazar, a rogue angel. He subsequently recurred in the Fox drama Fringe across the second and third seasons as Thomas Jerome Newton, the leader of a shapeshifter army from a parallel universe.

In 2011 Roché began recurring as Mikael, the father of the Original Vampires, in The Vampire Diaries on The CW, and later reprised the role in the spin-off series The Originals from 2014 through 2018. He recurred as Clyde Easter in Criminal Minds and made guest appearances in Grimm (2012), Burn Notice (2013), Scandal (2014), Once Upon a Time (2014) as King Stefan, NCIS: Los Angeles as Lee Ashman, and the PBS documentary miniseries The Mystery of Matter: Search for the Elements (2015), in which he portrayed Pierre Curie. In 2016 he co-starred as Cardinal Michel Marivaux in Paolo Sorrentino's The Young Pope alongside Jude Law and James Cromwell, and took on the starring role of Reichsminister Martin Heusmann in the second and third seasons of Amazon's The Man in the High Castle. He appeared as Emile Gilot, father of painter Françoise Gilot, in the second season of the National Geographic series Genius, and made his West End theatre debut performing in a modern-day adaptation of Molière's Tartuffe as Orgon.