Holm, Ian (1931– )

English stage and screen actor, and one of the UK's foremost character performers. Hugely versatile, he has played a robot in Alien (1979), a demanding athletics trainer in Chariots of Fire (1981), Ruth Ellis's doting admirer in Dance with a Stranger (1985), and a manic Italian restaurateur in Big Night (1996). He also played Napoleon in The Emperor's New Clothes (2001), and Bilbo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

A diminutive but commanding presence, Holm started his career as a Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, breaking into film in the late 1960s. In the 1990s he alternated support and lead roles in a series of UK and independent North American productions, effortlessly moving from the comic to the menacing. Later films include The Madness of King George (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), A Life Less Ordinary (1997), David Cronenberg's eXistenZ (1998), Garden State, and The Aviator (both 2004). He was knighted in 1998.