Peter Mensah

Peter Mensah played Oenomaus, the gladiator trainer, in the Starz series Spartacus from 2010 to 2013. His films run from Tears of the Sun and 300 to Avatar and Gladiator II.

Chiraa to England

He was born in Chiraa on 27 August 1959 to parents from the Brong Ahafo area. His father, Peter Osei Mensah, was an architectural engineer and his mother a writer, and the family, with his two younger sisters, moved to Hertfordshire when he was young. He took up martial arts at six. Although he acted at school, he trained as an engineer, worked on British Gas fields at Morecambe Bay, and moved to Canada in that job.

On screen

His other films include Hidalgo, Jason X, Harvard Man, Bless the Child, The Incredible Hulk and Joe Hahn's short The Seed. On TV he has appeared in Star Trek: Enterprise, Witchblade, Relic Hunter, La Femme Nikita, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and season five of True Blood. He voices Predaking in Transformers: Prime and voiced and modelled Sgt. Zach Hammond in the game Dead Space.