Bruce Payne

b. 1957 · English actor, producer and occasional screenwriter and director

Biography

Bruce Payne is an English actor, producer and, to a lesser extent, screenwriter and director, born in London in the late 1950s. He is best known for playing villains in action and horror films of the 1980s and 1990s, and he was associated with the Brit Pack, the group of young British actors who emerged in the late part of that decade.

Payne trained at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from 1979 to 1981 and graduated with several prizes for acting and comedy. Before enrolling he had worked as a joiner, a salesman and a landscape gardener. His first television role came in a children's series, and his first major film part was Flight Sergeant Kevin Cartwright in Privates on Parade, a role he had already played on stage. He then appeared in Michael Mann's The Keep (1983) as an unnamed border guard, and in Absolute Beginners (1986), where he played the racist Flikker in Julien Temple's musical. He also worked on stage with Steven Berkoff, in West and in Greek.

His best-known role is Charles Rane, the hijacker he played opposite Wesley Snipes in Passenger 57 (1992), a performance critics praised for its polished, sadistic menace. Other films from the period include For Queen and Country (1989), Switch (1991) and Solarbabies (1986). Later in the decade he returned to antagonist roles in Highlander: Endgame and Dungeons & Dragons (both 2000). More recently his work has leaned toward low-budget productions and smaller titles, such as Getaway (2013), which starred Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez. His legacy rests on the charismatic screen villain, a type he continues to play in independent cinema.

Key films

Passenger 57 (1992), as Charles Rane, the terrorist who faces Wesley Snipes's hero on a hijacked plane
Absolute Beginners (1986), as Flikker, a psychotic racist in Julien Temple's musical
Silence Like Glass (1989), as Doctor Burton in the German drama
Highlander: Endgame (2000), as Jacob Kell, one of the immortal antagonists of the series
Solarbabies (1986), as Dogger, a bounty hunter in the science fiction film

Trivia

A Batman role that never came

Warner Bros. featured him in a press campaign with the line "Bruce Payne as Bruce Wayne" for the first Tim Burton Batman film, but the part went to Michael Keaton.

Macbeth with a baseball bat

In 1980, during a rare visit by Queen Elizabeth II to RADA, Payne played Macbeth in a scene he had co-written, wielding a baseball bat instead of a sword.