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
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 want to play a man in uniform. I've got tremendous respect for that life that they lead. We know so little about it. It's never discussed or talked about, when they come back from battle. I want to examine the choices that have to be made in some terrible times. I'll get to wear a uniform.
I have a rather naive approach, I think, to my job.
I have never felt bereft of anything.
I think I'm more bonded, emotionally and in a craft sense, to films that tell extraordinary stories about extraordinary destinies.
I think if I were to go back on stage I might be in great danger of acting.
I think that you can fall into bad habits with comedy... It's a tightrope to stay true to the character, true to the irony, and allow the irony to happen.
Well, it's wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.
What is chess, do you think? Those who play for fun or not at all dismiss it as a game. The ones who devote their lives to it for the most part insist that it's a science. It's neither. Bobby Fischer got underneath it like no one before and found at its center, art.
It is better for me to serve a charity as an actor or a voice, rather than at a luncheon being just a celebrity.
I never went to drama school. I went straight into the theater. We had the most extraordinary voice teacher. I worked with her when I was starting out in my career. How to place my voice from a very relaxed position was all wonderfully reminiscent of going back to the basics. But I always like to do that with any role that I do, to dismantle it and put it all back together again.
The camera does not like acting. The camera is only interested in filming behaviour. So you damn well learn your lines until you know them inside out, while standing on your head!