Crying Freeman Actor Tcheky Karyo Dies at 72
French actor Tchéky Karyo died on Friday of cancer at the age of 72. Deadline reported the news. Karyo was born in Turkey in 1953 and moved to France with his family when he was young, eventually becoming one of the more recognizable faces in international cinema over the next four decades.
Anime and manga fans may know him from his role as Detective Netah in the 1995 live action film adaptation of Crying Freeman, the manga by Kazuo Koike and Ryoichi Ikegami. The film brought one of manga’s most famous assassination stories to the screen and Karyo was part of its ensemble cast.
His breakout came in 1990 with Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita, where he played Bob. That role opened the door to a string of English language Hollywood productions including Bad Boys, GoldenEye, and Joan of Arc. He also appeared in Nostradamus and several European productions throughout the decade.
Later in his career he became well known to British television audiences as detective Julien Baptiste in The Missing, earning a nomination at the 2015 Monte Carlo TV Festival for that role. His most recent credit was the French film Faster, which opened in April. Altogether he appeared in more than 100 film and television works over roughly 40 years.
My take: Karyo had one of those careers where he showed up in a lot of things you loved without always being the name you could immediately place. His work in La Femme Nikita alone made him a fixture of 90s cinema, and his turn in Crying Freeman is a real piece of manga adaptation history. He will be missed.
