Alexander Siddig

Slender, dashingly handsome actor of Sudanese-English parentage (his mother is the sister of actor Malcolm McDowall) who first made an appearance on the big screen in Stephen Frears' "Sammie and Rosie Get Laid" (1987). He subsequently recreated Alec Guinness' role as Emir Feisal from the 1962 film "Lawrence of Arabia" for the "Great Performances" TV drama, "A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia", as it continued the story of English adventurer T.E. Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). Siddig, is however, best known for his quietly suave and sensitively appealing Dr. Bashir on the popular sci-fi spin-off series "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993-99). He changed his name from Siddig El Fadil to Alexander Siddig at the beginning of the fourth season. It seems that after three years, fans were still having trouble with his name.

After "Deep Space Nine" was consigned to rerun heaven, Siddig returned to the big screen for the first time in 13 years with a supporting role in the mountain scaling adventure "Vertical Limit" (2000). After appearing in "Reign of Fire" (2002), a futuristic sci-fi fantasy complete with fire-breathing dragons destroying London, Siddig appeared in "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005), Sir Ridley Scott's evenhanded take on the tentative truce among Muslims and Christians between the 2nd and 3rd Crusades of the 12th century. He then had a particularly effective turn as Prince Nassir, a reform-minded Arab royal who hopes to improve the lot of the people in his oil-rich nation but finds himself contending for leadership against his greedy, corrupt younger brother, in the political potboiler "Syriana" (2005).