[7] Roach made his acting debut as the red-bearded bouncer in the Korova Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.

He worked on another Kubrick film, Barry Lyndon, where he played a hand-to-hand brawler named Toole who engages Ryan O'Neal in a fistfight.

He appeared as the skull-helmeted General Kael in the film Willow; the evil wizard Thoth-Amon in Conan the Destroyer and as the Celtic chieftain in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

In 1985, he played Petty Officer Edgar Evans in the Central TV serial The Last Place on Earth about Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole.

Roach was turned down as Darth Vader in Star Wars;[8] however, its director, George Lucas, subsequently cast him as several burly villains in the Indiana Jones film series in the 1980s.

[9] On television Roach played the down-to-earth and easy going Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in the long running comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.