Before Darko Perić joined the cast of Money Heist, he'd built his acting career in Spain playing the stereotypical roles that were offered to him: Russian gangsters or otherwise foreign tough guys. But the Serbian-born actor’s life changed once he scored the part of Helsinki, a tough guy with a heart of gold, in the Netflix bank-heist thriller series.

"Before Money Heist, I'd done some different things here in Spain, some movies, TV shows, but always, always, always this was my role: an evil Russian, a mafioso," Peric tells Netflix ahead of the Part 5 premiere. "Then all of a sudden, Helsinki. Boom! Everything changed."

The series’ success was unexpected for Perić. It's still a surprise that he gets recognized in public — and that people are excited to see him. "People have always judged me by my appearance. The tattoos, beard, shaved head... the accent. And now I always say, 'Damn, before no one sat next to me on the subway, now they're asking for photos,' ” he says. “So all of this, it's all Helsi's fault. Helsinki changed my life. It's something that happens once in a lifetime, and to one in 100 million people. Or one in a billion."

Once he began gaining recognition for Helsinki, Perić was opened to a world of new roles — ones he feels he would never have been considered for in the past. "It's very complicated to work as [a foreign] actor in Spain because they're a bunch of clichés," he says. "'This accent is for Russians. These guys are Russian mafiosos. This accent is for South American mafiosos... ' You know? And that's how it is. That's how the industry is in this country right now."

Still, Perić hopes that, in the coming years, the Spanish film industry will diversify. In 20 years, he says, maybe it’ll be like France, where people of every ethnicity can play heroic roles instead of being typecast as criminals. And in 50 years, maybe, "it'll be like in the United States, where a character like me could be anything. Your physical appearance really restricts you,” he says. “That's how it's been for me — it has restricted me a lot. And now, in fact, I have different offers and I like them. It's nice to do other things, and that's thanks to the character of Helsinki."