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
Ever since I did Sexy Beast in 1999 my career has been very busy and very rewarding. It's a wonderful time for me,
In order to inhabit a villain, you mustn't care what the audience think of you. That's not why you are there. You mustn't care for a second whether the audience likes you or dislikes you. Your villain has to be way beyond that.
I've met quite a number of people in my career, but I do have an extraordinary memory. And even though they may drift into the periphery of my memory, I can bring them right back when I need them.
I'm convinced that had I not changed my name, I don't think I would have had quite the same career curve that I eventually had.
I love storytelling. If you strip all the bits away, what you'll find at the center is a storyteller. As I warm to my career and love it more, I have a sense that storytelling is healing, in many ways. You can reach an audience and heal, and by heal, I mean entertain and provoke. It's a wonderful life.
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 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.
Quite often when I'm cast in a movie, I'm asked to bring whatever intelligence is there to the surface.
Everything that's made me what I am today is part of that process of being intrigued and curious. But I really couldn't put my finger on any specific trigger from my childhood.
The title is the equivalent of when you become a doctor after years of medical school training... I suppose after years of chewing up the furniture and scenery on stage and in films I get to Sir for being a thespian.
It doesn't get any easier. I still get very nervous and excited, but I'm hoping... what I'm trying to do is simplify. That's what I'm trying to do.
I'm holding a mirror to the audience and telling them there is a violent person in all of us.
The astonishing silences in a Tarkovsky film... can sweep you into screen and... you don't want to end.
If we hit the collective nerve of the audience on that night, that they would be standing up and rushing towards the stage to hug us.