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
Equal partners aren't always what we envision as being manifestly equal. Equality can come in many different shapes and sizes and combinations.
When Attenborough asked me to do Gandhi it was almost like stepping off one boat and stepping on to another, even though both boats are going at 60 miles per hour.
I didn't go to drama school because, from the first refusal I then, as I said, a couple of weeks later, was offered a professional job, where I am immensely grateful to the journey.
If you are a libertine, if you're not given to long-term faithful relationships, you tend to project your behavior onto everyone else. It's like the person who knows they're not trustworthy; they tend to mistrust everyone else.
You want to know what I want? I'll tell you what I want. I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared.
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.
It's Sir Ben. I've not been a Mister for two years.
The number of choices you make in the event that you see on stage, those choices are sometimes largely determined by the rehearsal process and the experiments that you go through and the choices that you make in the rehearsal room, not in front of an audience.
With narration, you have to be very accurate with your voice. It's a good exercise to do.
Shock is shock. Your body goes into shock, regardless of it being real blood or fake blood. The mind sends powerful messages to all the various glands and secretions in the body. It's impossible trying to act it; it just happens. It's a very important question: no acting.
If the director wishes to print it, then you have a series of choices, maybe millions of choices within that minute-and-a-half, or 80 seconds, or 2 minutes or however long or short the take is, you have all those choices committed to celluloid. I find that absolutely thrilling.
I think Romeo and Juliet is uplifting. That's how much a son wishes to avenge his father. That is how much two young people can love each other.
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've never had to turn my hand to anything for monetary gain, other than pretending to be somebody else. I'm deeply fortunate.