Michael Flessas

Michael C. Flessas (born June 2, 1959 in Miami, Florida), is the birth name of American actor Michael Flessas, who is of Greek ancestry. Flessas' most notable film role was Angry Man in the Cannes Film Festival 2000 Palme d'Or winning film Dancer in the Dark directed by Danish film director Lars von Trier. Originally, the director himself considered playing the role but, instead, the role was given to Flessas. Dancer in the Dark starred Icelandic singer/actress Björk who won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her role. French film icon, César Award winner, and Academy Award nominee Catherine Deneuve, and other noteworthy artists such as Academy Award and Tony Award winner Joel Grey, Peter Stormare, David Morse, and Stellan Skarsgård also performed in the multiple prize winning film. One of Björk's songs for the film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.

In Iranian actress/director Susan Taslimi's film Hus i helvete (The film's English title: All Hell Let Loose), starring Melinda Kinnaman, which won the Best Feature Film prize at the Brooklyn International Film Festival in 2003, Flessas played the vicious pornographer "Videomannen" in a nightmarish flashback scene in the film.

Flessas also portrayed massive and deadly Russian hitman "Jurij Rostoff" in Beck - Okänd avsändare, a made for television movie directed by Swedish actor and director Harald Hamrell. Beck - Okänd avsändare was among the popular Swedish Beck detective films and made-for-television movies starring Swedish actor Peter Haber. As "Jurij Rostoff" Flessas weighed in at 150 kilos in the role as a result of weight training and diet; however, in his younger and less heavy years, Flessas danced in the corps de ballet of the Columbia City Ballet then under the direction of Ann Brodie in Columbia, South Carolina.

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