'A prospective director would have to convince me that I could bring something new, fresh and exciting to a classical part that hundreds of other people have played,' he said.Over the years, Cross has played Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa blackmailed into flying a MiG from Iraq to Israel in the 1988 HBO spy film "Steal the Sky", and in Ian Sharp's 1989 NBC-TV miniseries, "Twist of Fate", a German Nazi SS colonel and war criminal Helmut von Schraeder, who has his face and voice surgically changed to pose as a Jew in a concentration camp to avoid post-war capture and war crime punishment by the approaching Allies, then after his liberation at the war's end by twist of fate becomes a Zionist and ends up becoming one of the state of Israel's founders and military generals, a vampire in the 1989 USA Network film "Nightlife", another vampire, Barnabas Collins, in the 1991 MGM miniseries remake of the cult classic TV soap opera, "Dark Shadows", Sir Harold Pearson in the 1994 Italian production "Caro Dolce Amore (Honey Sweet Love)", Solomon in the 1997 Trimark Pictures production Solomon and Captain Nemo in the 1997 CBS film "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".