Julian Sands (born 4 January 1958) is an English actor. He is known for his roles in films such as The Killing Fields, A Room with a View, Warlock, Arachnophobia, Boxing Helena, and Leaving Las Vegas. On television, he is known for playing Vladimir Bierko in 24, Jor-El in Smallville, and Yulish Rabitov in Banshee.
On 13 January 2023, Sands went missing while hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles. As of April 2023, he has not been located.
Career
Julian Sands began his film career appearing in supporting roles in films, including Oxford Blues (1984) and The Killing Fields (1984). He also had a cameo as a Greek soldier in the BBC adaptation of The Box of Delights in 1984. He was cast as the romantic lead in the 1985 film A Room with a View. In 1985, following the success of A Room with a View and Ken Russell's Gothic (1986) Sands decided to move to Hollywood and pursue a career in American films. He appeared in several of them—both lower-tier and higher-budget.
He played the title role in the horror film Warlock (1989) and its sequel Warlock: The Armageddon (1993), the role of Franz Liszt in Impromptu (1991), the role of Yves Cloquet in Naked Lunch (1991), and prominent roles in Arachnophobia (1990), Boxing Helena (1993) and Leaving Las Vegas (1995). He played Erik, aka the Phantom in the 1998 horror-film version of The Phantom of the Opera. He starred opposite Jackie Chan in the action-comedy film The Medallion (2003). He played Laurence Olivier in BBC Four's In Praise of Hardcore (2005), a drama about the critic and impresario Kenneth Tynan.
Sands at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival
In television work, he voiced Valmont in the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon (Seasons 1 and 2) (succeeded by the British actors Andrew Ableson and Greg Ellis in the remaining seasons). He played the Doci of the Ori in two episodes of Stargate SG-1—in its ninth and tenth seasons (a role he reprised in the film, Stargate: the Ark of Truth). He played a college professor in a Season One episode of The L Word. In 2002, he starred in Stephen King's Rose Red. Sands portrayed Austrian ambassador Klemens von Metternich in the 2002 miniseries Napoléon. In the 2006 season of 24, he played terrorist Vladimir Bierko.
Sands played Jor-El, Superman's biological father, on Smallville, and reprised the role in the series' final (tenth) season. In 2009, he played Reg Hunt in Bollywood Hero. In 2012, he played Alistair Wesley in the seventh episode of the second season of Person of Interest.
In August 2011, he appeared onstage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in A Celebration of Harold Pinter, directed by John Malkovich at the Pleasance Courtyard. The play transferred to the Irish Repertory Theatre, in New York. His performance in the play was nominated for "Outstanding Solo Performance" for the 58th Annual Drama Desk Awards (2013).
In 2011, Sands appeared in the mystery thriller film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an English-language remake of the original version, as the younger Henrik Vanger. In 2012, Sands voiced the character of DeFalco in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. In 2013, Sands appeared as Miles Castner, a wealthy international businessman, during the eighth season of Dexter.
