After training as a teacher, Pete Postlethwaite started his acting career at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre, where his colleagues included Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Antony Sher, and Julie Walters. After routine early appearances in small parts for television programs such as The Professionals, Postlethwaite's first...
success came with the acclaimed British film Distant Voices, Still Lives in 1988. He then received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Name of the Father in 1993.
His performance as the mysterious lawyer "Kobayashi" in The Usual Suspects is well-known, and he appeared in many successful films including Alien 3, Brassed Off, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener, Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (as Friar Lawrence), and in Inception with Leonardo di Caprio.