Julian Sands was an English actor. He was born in Otley, West Yorkshire, England, on 4 January 1958. He was educated at Lord Wandsworth College in Hampshire, and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Sands began his film career working 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, and he appeared opposite John Hurt in the Swiss film After Darkness in 1985.
His break-out role was as George Emersont, the romantic lead in the 1985 film A Room with a View. Following the success of A Room with a View and Ken Russell's Gothic (1986), Sands dropped out of Maurice and decided to move to Hollywood to pursue a career in American films, where he appeared in a range of roles. Sands 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 also appeared in The Medallion (2003), Ocean's Thirteen (2007), and the mystery thriller film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an English-language remake of the original version, as the younger Henrik Vanger.
On television, he voiced Valmont in seasons 1 and 2 of Jackie Chan Adventures, before being replaced by 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 1 episode of The L Word. In 2002, he starred in Stephen King's Rose Red, and in the miniseries Napoléon as the Austrian ambassador Klemens von Metternich. In 2005, he played Laurence Olivier in BBC Four's Kenneth Tynan: In Praise of Hardcore, a drama about the critic and impresario Kenneth Tynan. In the 2006 season of 24, he played terrorist Vladimir Bierko. Sands played Jor-El, Superman's father, on Smallville, and reprised the role in the series' tenth and final 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 2013, he appeared as Miles Castner, a wealthy international businessman, during the eighth season of Dexter.
In August 2011, Sands 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).
On 13 January 2023, just over a week after his 65th birthday, Sands, a dedicated mountaineer, went missing while hiking in Mount San Antonio, California, in the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles. On 24 June, human remains were found by hikers in the area where Sands had disappeared, and the remains were positively identified as Sands' on 27 June 2023.
Sands and his family lived in Los Angeles, California, from 2020 until his death.
