Carl Adolf "Max" von Sydow is a Swedish actor who has also held French citizenship since 2002. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more in many languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, English, Italian, German, Danish, French and Spanish. Von Sydow received the Royal Foundation of Sweden's Cultural Award in 1954, was made a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, and was named a Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur on October 17th, 2012.
Some of his most memorable film roles include Knight Antonius Block in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, the first of his eleven films with Bergman, and the film that includes the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death; Martin in Through a Glass Darkly; Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told; Oktober in The Quiller Memorandum; Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants; Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist; Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor; Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon; the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again; Liet-Kynes in Dune; Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters; Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings; Lamar Burgess in Minority Report and The Renter in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which earned him his second Academy Award nomination.
|