Figures English actor had played (9)
I believe the answer is:
octahedra
'figures' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'english actor had played' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation).
'played' indicates an anagram (letters playing around).
'e'+'actor'+'had'='eactorhad'
'eactorhad' is an anagram of 'OCTAHEDRA'.
(Other definitions for octahedra that I've seen before include "things with many faces" , "shapes" , "solids" , "Solid artefacts" , "Solid figures with eight plane faces" .)