That would be Goran Višnjić / Visnjic (pronunced roughly like VISH nyitch), one of four character actors in the tv series Crossing Lines who especially caught my eye. Here’s a display of the main cast from season 3 of the show, with three of the four:
(#1)
Starting at the lower left and moving clockwise, the three are #2 (Lara Rossi), #5 (Visnjic), and #7 (Donald Sutherland). And to justify the title of this posting, here’s Visnjic in one of his signature roles, in the Land of Shirtless Men, as the lead in the 2004 tv miniseries Spartacus:
(#2)
About Crossing Lines, from Wikipedia:
Crossing Lines is a German-French-Italian-American television series created by Edward Allen Bernero and Rola Bauer. [Premiered in 2013, ran for three seasons.]
… Plot: Former New York Police Department officer Carl Hickman’s life has fallen apart after he was injured on the job; he has become addicted to morphine and works as a garbage collector at a carnival in the Netherlands. He is recruited to join the International Criminal Court’s special crime unit (a fictional unit). Based in The Hague, it investigates a variety of crimes that cross international boundaries. The unit includes an anti-organized crime covert specialist from Italy, a technical specialist from Germany, a crimes analyst and a human trafficking specialist from France, and a weapons specialist and tactical expert from Northern Ireland.
The four actors:
American actor William Fichtner, playing American character Carl Hickman (seasons 1 and 2)
British actor Rossi, playing Dutch character Arabela Seeger (guest in season 1, main character after that)
Croatian actor Visnjic, playing Italian character Marco Constante (season 3)
Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, playing Polish character Michel Dorn (throughout the series)
Fichtner and Sutherland are versatile character actors who’ve taken on a great many roles. A head shot of Fichtner, not pictured above:
(#3)
Rossi is the youngest of the set, and information I’ve been able to find on the net about her is all about her professional life, with no personal details to speak of. She’s clearly British and black, and she has a riveting, comple presence on-screen, but beyond that I know nothing. (Her character on the show is Dutch, of mixed Nigerian-Dutch parentage, and lesbian.)
Which brings us back to Visnjic. From Wikipedia:
Goran Višnjić ( … born September 9, 1972) is a Croatian American actor who has appeared in American and British films and television productions. He is best known in the United States for his role as Dr. Luka Kovač on the NBC television series ER.
… Credited as Goran Visnjic in his English-language work, he adopted the simplified spelling of his name when he came to the United States in the late 1990s
… In 2015 he played the lead role in the third season of Crossing Lines, portraying the role of Marco Constante, an Italian detective in search for his sister.
On the tv series Spartacus:
(#4)
Spartacus is a 2004 North American miniseries directed by Robert Dornhelm and produced by Ted Kurdyla from a teleplay by Robert Schenkkan. It aired over two nights on the USA Network, and stars Goran Visnjic, Alan Bates, Angus Macfadyen, Rhona Mitra, Ian McNeice, Ross Kemp and Ben Cross. It is based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast.
The plot, setting, and costumes are nearly identical to those of the Stanley Kubrick 1960 version; however, this adaptation follows Howard Fast’s novel more closely than does Kubrick’s film.
Tons of shirtless action (as in #2), but also shots showing off Visnjic’s nicely developed arms and shoulders, as here:
(#5)
But he’s not just a muscle-hunk. He’s a physically expressive actor who also projects considerable charm. Fun to watch, especially when he plays against actors with different styles, like Rossi and Sutherland.
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