Abdel Qissi - Biography

Imposingly large, 6' 2" Abdel Qissi was born in Morocco on 20 January 1960 and he is best known for playing some of the leading bad guys to Jean-Claude Van Damme.

He grew up in Brussels, where he was trained in boxing at sports center in Ixelles, there he also met Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme, Abdel and his younger brother Michel Qissi (later best known as another Van Damme bad guy - Tong Po in "Kickboxer") and traveled to Los Angeles to begin a movie career.

Abdel debuted as monstrous fighter Attila in Lionheart (1990) and from that moment he was besides Van Damme in two more films, The Quest (1996), perhaps the best known film with Damme, where Abdel played the Mongolian fighter, also opposite Roger Moore, James Remar and Janet Gunn, and The Order (2001), this time in smaller role of big Arab on market place, opposite Charlton Heston and Brian Thompson. Other films that Abdel appeared are Shadow Boxing (1993) and Silver Tears (2007).