Abdel Qissi

Abdel Qissi is a Moroccan-born actor who built a screen career playing imposing villains, most often opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme. Born in Morocco and raised in Brussels, he trained as a boxer at a sports center in Ixelles, where he first met Van Damme; the two later traveled to Los Angeles with Qissi's younger brother Michel Qissi to pursue film work. He made his debut as the monstrous fighter Attila in Lionheart (1990), and went on to appear alongside Van Damme in The Quest (1996), playing a Mongolian fighter opposite Roger Moore, James Remar and Janet Gunn, and in The Order (2001), as a large Arab in a marketplace, with Charlton Heston and Brian Thompson. His other screen credits include Shadow Boxing (1993) and Silver Tears (2007).