Robert Llewellyn

While best known for his role as Kryten, the robot servant on the popular British science fiction series "Red Dwarf," actor Robert Llewellyn is also an author, and has hosted several shows, including the engineering game show "Scrapheap Challenge." He started out as a shoemaker before shifting into entertainment, first organizing cabaret shows and then forming the comedy troupe The Joeys, which toured successfully throughout the U.K. and Europe in the early '80s. After an early comedy series, "The Corner House," failed, he wrote and performed the stage show "Mammon, Robot Born of Woman," about an android whose behavior deteriorates as it becomes increasingly human. A producer of "Red Dwarf" saw the show and invited Llewellyn to join the offbeat science fiction comedy series as Kryten, a part the actor returned to in subsequent seasons for the next decade, and again for a mini-series in 2009. Though this is Llewellyn's best-known role, he also gained attention as the host of "Scrapheap Challenge," a show where contestants used supplies found in a junkyard to build machines. The success of the show resulted in spinoffs and an American version, "Junkyard Wars." Llewellyn's podcast "Carpool," in which he interviews British television celebrities while driving them to their appointed destination, proved popular enough to get picked up for television. In addition to writing, producing, and acting for TV, Llewellyn has written novels, memoirs, and a book about his experiences on "Red Dwarf."