You may not know the name Richard Brake, but his face has probably featured in your nightmares for years. That's because the 57-year-old actor from Ystrad Mynach has been cropping up as monstrous baddies in scary movies for nearly three decades.
And his latest, Barbarian, has seen him terrify fans both on screen and off - at least in the case of the unfortunate film-goer who unwittingly found herself sitting behind the Welshman at a recent screening in LA. Dubbed by critics "the most frightening horror of the year", it's the tale of an Airbnb rental from hell, where the guests discover a dark secret hidden deep beneath the property.
In it Brake plays the evil right at the very heart of that subterranean world. Which is why it came as such a shock to the woman who suddenly found herself face-to-face with him in the cinema when the film finally ended and the house lights came back up.
"True story: I finally got a chance to see Barbarian tonight as I’m filming outside Los Angles at the moment," tweeted Brake last week. "The audience were going wild, especially a group of teenagers a few rows behind me.
"When the film finished and the credits rolled, they started to leave. One of them was using her phone flashlight which accidentally shone on me.
"She said. 'That’s the guy from the movie' and proceeded to scream in terror and run out of the theatre."
And, with a role as a mad scientist in Rob Zombie's reimagining of The Munsters coming up soon, Barbarian represents another peak in the actor's long and varied celluloid career. Recently he's joined the Star Wars universe in the Disney spin-off series The Mandalorian, starred alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins in 2021's The Virtuoso and doffed a flat cap in the third series of Peaky Blinders - only for his character to be killed off by Arthur Shelby Jr.
And let's not forget, Brake is also responsible for playing arguably the most terrifying villain ever to appear on the small screen, namely the Night's King on Game of Thrones. That said, most viewers would have struggled to recognise him, buried as he was under a tonne of latex make-up - a process that saw him stuck in the make-up chair for six hours each day.
What is more, superhero devotees will remember Brake as Joe Chill in 2005's Batman Begins - a small but pivotal role as the two-bit crook who kills Bruce Wayne's parents, thereby kickstarting the now orphaned lad's gradual transformation into the caped crusader. Not that he's ruled out playing more cuddly roles in the near future, mind.
"I'd love to do that," he told WalesOnline last year. "If there are any filmmakers out there who want a Welshman with sharp cheekbones and wonky teeth to play the love interest in their next movie, just give me a call."
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