What to Know About Vincent Cassel, Who Plays Serac on Westworld

Warning: The following post contains spoilers for episode two of HBO’s Westworld

• Serac, the mystery tech mogul, was revealed in Westworld‘s episode 2.
• He’s played by the French actor Vincent Cassel.
• Cassel has brought commanding physicality to each of his roles.

After escaping what we can only guess is “Nazi World,” Maeve, spotted by “the system,” awakes in the home of its Big Brother chief architect, Serac.

Serac is played by the celebrated French actor Vincent Cassel. Americans will recognize Cassel best as François Toulour in the Ocean’s movies. Or as an assassin in Jason Bourne. Or as the ballet director in Black Swan. (He plays a lot of evil, conniving dudes.)

Throughout his career, Cassel (now 53) has defined his roles through physicality, screen presence attained through motion, muscle, and, god, just look at those cheek bones.

Here’s a few things to know about the acclaimed French actor.

He made his breakout with La Haine

Cinephiles will probably know Cassel best as the star of the 1996 French drama La Haine. (If you haven’t seen La Haine, seriously, go watch La Haine. Go watch it now.) The film, which follows a group of three French youths in the days following a scene of violence, would contribute to Cassel’s typecast: unstable men with hair-trigger tempers.

Cassel says his toughness has nothing to do with muscle. As he told the New York Times in an interview, “If you got to be mean and hard, tough and dangerous, it comes through in an attitude, and let’s say, a mystery, more than in how much you weigh.”

He’s had his share of body transformation roles

Though Cassel favors attitude, he has, nonetheless, transformed his body for roles. At 6’2″, Cassel is generally lean. But for his title role in Mesrine, a biopic on the notorious French criminal Jacques Mesrine, Cassel needed to gain weight. So he put on close to 40 pounds. How? By drinking at least two 1,500 calories milkshakes each day.

He’s a trained ballet dancer

Cassel began training in his 30s to supplement his acting. “I had this idea that actors should be able to do everything,” he told The Guardian. “I used ballet as a base for doing circus performance, tap dance, jazz, kung fu.”

Cassel’s ballet experience came in handy while working on Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. On the profession of ballet: “It’s a terrible job. It’s so hard.”

He’s dedicated to the surf

Well, if you’re a suave French movie star with that kind of body, you might take some shirtless trips down to the riviera too. Random thought: is James Bond allowed to be French?