Born Anthony Robert McMillan, portly comic actor Robbie Coltrane was
born in Rutherglen, Scotland, and graduated from Glasgow School of Art.
During the late 1970s, he rose to prominence as an improvisational comedian
on the nightclub circuit before moving into films when debuting in Death
Watch (1980). Despite a smattering of small films roles he became a
recognisable figure in alternative comedy and was a frequent participant
in The Comic Strip Presents productions and BBC2's tv comedy series
The Young Ones and Blackadder. Coltrane won notice for his turn as Bob
Hoskins' mechanic pal in Mona
Lisa (1986) and in Derek Jarman's
Caravaggio (1986).
In the 1990s, Coltrane continued his cinema career with performances
in weak comedies such as Nuns on the Run (1990) and The Pope Must Die
(1991), and had cameo roles in the James Bond films GoldenEye
(1995) and The World
Is Not Enough (1999) as Russian gangster Valentin Zukovsky. In 1993,
Coltrane began his best-known role as police psychologist Fitz in the
award-winning ITV detective series Cracker. He won a legion of new fans
when he appeared as the kindly gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid in the film
adaptation of Harry
Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001).
