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
The trick is to try and justify every word on the page and make sure my character is the man who would say that.
I try and reduce myself to an almost blank slate and hope to God that I am creative.
I always try to find something I admire about every character I play.
I think that all of us either lose touch with the child inside us or try and hold onto it because it so precious to us and it's such an extraordinary part of our lives.
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.
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.
I'm so dependent on reacting to the other actors on the set, and to the director. I'm very responsive. I react. And I treasure the energy that reaction gives.
Well, it's wonderful to be identified strongly with my work.
There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word.
I hope I'm able to achieve more on camera through stillness, through focus, through being quite careful to do less on every take, rather than more. So I'm reducing, rather than adding. Which hopefully is a good exercise. That's what I'd like to do.
Movie magic is movie magic and acting magic is acting magic.
John Lennon and Ringo Starr liked my songs. I used to write songs and they heard me sing songs on stage in London.
I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things.
My line-learning is very special. I like to learn the dialogue of the whole film before I arrive.