Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley is an English actor. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has won an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA, two Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award. He is known for his starring role as Mohandas Gandhi in the 1982 film Gandhi, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also known for his performances in the films Schindler's List, Twelfth Night, Sexy Beast, Lucky Number Slevin, Shutter Island, Prince of Persia: The...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth31 December 1943
CitySnainton, England
I'm holding a mirror to the audience and telling them there is a violent person in all of us.
Unfortunately I went to a hotel in Krakow, and unfortunately, one night, there was a brawl in the bar because a horrible anti-Semitic remark was made to one of my fellow Israeli actors, one of my fellow actors who was an Israeli, sorry, and we were all extremely upset. I reacted rather violently, I'm afraid.
Somewhere in your career, your work changes. It becomes less anal, less careful and more spontaneous, more to do with the information that your soul carries.
I don't think that making ourselves invulnerable to feeling any onslaught to our feelings will help us in life, ultimately. I think we only learn and grow by allowing ourselves to be really challenged by those feelings that do overwhelm us occasionally.
I may return to the stage, but not in the foreseeable future.
If people are generous with their information, then the actor can use that information lovingly and respectfully.
I like to do one or two films a year. But I can't prepare for something until I know what it's going to be. So I find that doing some narration, or maybe a documentary, is like going back into the gym for a couple of days.
In my own experience, in portraying other men and earning my money by pretending to be somebody else, it has stamped me with what the actor is-tribally central and socially peripheral.
I think a great director is able to conclude things with grace... and I remember Gandhi ending in a very similar way.
I just try to do the things that I respond to, that just grab me when I read them for whatever reason. It's hard to put your finger on it.
Ever since I did Sexy Beast in 1999 my career has been very busy and very rewarding. It's a wonderful time for me,
I use my intuition, my imagination, my voice and my body. That is really what actors do. There is a lot of nonsense talked about acting, but really all we do is use our voice, our body, our imaginations to create portraits about people so that you and the audience can be pulled into beautiful stories.
There's always a part of me that's migrating. That's so much part of my attempt to portray all these different men. The sense of being displaced from my home, homeland and language is a very real part of my working life.
I told the queen that winning an Oscar pales into insignificance. This is insurmountable,