John Hurt

Hurt trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and St Martin's School of Art before building a substantial British stage and screen career through the 1960s and 70s, developing a reputation as one of his generation's most respected character actors well before his genre-defining scene.

One of Britain's finest character actors, he was immortalized in genre history by cinema's most infamous dinner scene. Already nominated for an Academy Award for Midnight Express, he was reportedly not told the full details of the chestburster effect in advance, so that his co-stars' shocked reactions on camera would be genuine.

He went on to a decades-long career as one of British cinema's most respected working actors, appearing in an extraordinary range of prestige films until his death in 2017, with that single dinner-table scene remaining perhaps the most instantly recognizable moment of his entire filmography.