Olek Krupa

Best known for his roles as Eastern European gangsters, spies, and soldiers, Polish actor Olek Krupa has appeared in a variety of American films and TV series, ranging from the comedy sequel "Home Alone 3" to the daytime drama "As the World Turns." Though he traveled to the United States in the mid-'70s, he didn't begin his involvement with theater until returning to Poland.

In 1981, he moved to the States and acted in productions at New York's Public Theatre, including "My Uncle Sam" and "The Ballad of Soapy Smith." His first narrative feature appearance came with a bit part in the steamy "Nine 1/2 Weeks" followed by guest spots on such TV crime dramas as "Miami Vice."

He played an atypical role as renowned Austrian actor-director Erich von Stroheim in the miniseries "The Kennedys of Massachusetts," while shifting into mobster territory the same year in the Coen brothers' Prohibition-era "Miller's Crossing." In "Home Alone 3," he is a Russian spy pursuing a top-secret microchip, and he takes chase again in "Behind Enemy Lines," this time as a Serbian soldier hounding plane-wrecked American pilot Owen Wilson.

He has appeared as various nefarious characters on episodes of "Law & Order" and as a Maltese police inspector on "As the World Turns." In the 2010 Angelina Jolie-starring espionage action film, "Salt," he stepped up to a loftier position as the Russian president.