Please Rewind Talent Wall

Andreas Wisniewski

Andreas Wisniewski is a German actor and director whose imposing frame and background in dance have helped define a screen career filled with assassins, henchmen and other quietly threatening figures. Born in West Berlin on July 3, 1959, to a Polish father and German mother, he spent the early part of his life dancing before turning to acting. Wisniewski made his big-screen debut as Fletcher in Gothic (1986), a film centered on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. His imposing physical presence soon found a natural home in action cinema. At 6 feet 3 inches, he played the assassin Necros in the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights, then appeared as Tony Vreski, one of Hans Gruber’s henchmen, in Die Hard the following year. These roles established the kind of controlled menace Wisniewski could bring to a film without demanding its center. His subsequent work moved between film and television. He appeared in Superboy, Mann & Machine and Northern Exposure, and played Weyland in the 1995 science-fiction film Death Machine. In Mission: Impossible (1996), he took a non-speaking role as Max’s companion—a character he returned to 15 years later in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. After working in German films, Wisniewski returned to British television through Lock, Stock...The Series and Ultimate Force, where he played Serbian terrorist Savo Glasnovic. He later appeared in the thriller Hush and made a brief appearance as Russian criminal Dimitri in a 2008 episode of The Bill. Away from acting, he directed the 2001 short film Inspiration, starring Danny Webb and Christine Adams. Wisniewski’s career is built less around leading-man display than precise, memorable supporting work. Across Bond, Die Hard and Mission: Impossible, he has repeatedly made physical stillness, stature and economy of expression count.