Max von Sydow is a Swedish-French actor, born in Sweden and now holds French citizenship. He has starred in many films and had supporting roles in dozens more. He has performed in films filmed 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, the Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres in 2005 and the Légion d’honneur in 2010.

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 scene in which he plays chess with Death), Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told, Father Merrin in The Exorcist, Karl Oskar in The Emigrants, Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor, Ming the Merciless in the 1980 version of Flash Gordon, the villain Blofeld in Never Say Never Again, Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters, and Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror, for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. In 2012, he was nominated a second time, for his supporting role in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.