Ben Kingsley

Ben Kingsley, born Krishna Pandit Bhanji on 31 December 1943 in Snainton, North Riding of Yorkshire, is an English-Indian actor whose Broadway appearances span the years 1971 to 1983. His mother, Anna Lyna Mary Goodman, was an English actress and model, and his father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was born in Zanzibar to a family of Khoja Gujarati descent originating from Jamnagar, India. Kingsley grew up in Pendlebury, Lancashire, and was educated at Manchester Grammar School, where actor Robert Powell was among his classmates. He later studied at De La Salle College in Salford, which subsequently became home to The Ben Kingsley Theatre. Though his father practiced Ismaili Shia Islam, Kingsley was raised as a Quaker. During his college years he became involved in amateur dramatics in Manchester and made his professional stage debut upon graduation at the age of 23.

In the 1960s, Kingsley adopted his stage name, having performed one audition as Krishna Bhanji and been told the company did not know how to place him. After changing his name, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 following an audition before Trevor Nunn, having declined an offer from music producer Dick James to pursue a career as a pop star. His West End debut came that same year at the Aldwych Theatre in a production of As You Like It. Over the following fifteen years he devoted himself almost exclusively to stage work, appearing in RSC productions including Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Tempest, Hamlet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. He played Demetrius in Peter Brook's 1970 RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and in 1977 took on the role of Mosca in Peter Hall's production of Ben Jonson's Volpone for the Royal National Theatre.

Kingsley made his Broadway debut in 1971, playing Demetrius in a revival of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream alongside Patrick Stewart, Frances de la Tour, and Martin Best. He returned to Broadway to play the title role in Raymond Fitzsimmons's Edmund Kean, a production that ran into 1983. Both productions fall within his verified Broadway performance record, which spans 1971 to 1983. Outside of Broadway during this period, he played Willy Loman in a 1982 Sydney production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman opposite Mel Gibson.

Kingsley began transitioning to film and television work while still primarily a stage performer. He appeared as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera Coronation Street from 1966 to 1967 and made recurring appearances as a defence counsel on the British legal programme Crown Court. His feature film debut came in 1972 in the British action thriller Fear Is the Key. In 1974 he played Thidias in a taped RSC performance of Antony and Cleopatra alongside Patrick Stewart and Tim Pigott-Smith, and in 1975 he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the historical drama The Love School, followed by an appearance in the television miniseries Dickens of London in 1976.

The defining moment of Kingsley's film career came with Richard Attenborough's Gandhi in 1982, in which he played the title role of Mahatma Gandhi. The performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama. He received subsequent Academy Award nominations for Bugsy in 1990, Sexy Beast in 2000, and House of Sand and Fog in 2003, and earned a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Itzhak Stern in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List in 1993. His further film credits include Maurice (1987), Sneakers (1992), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), Death and the Maiden (1994), Twelfth Night (1996), Tuck Everlasting (2002), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Elegy (2008), Shutter Island (2010), and Hugo (2011). He also appeared in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) and Ender's Game (2013), and provided voice work for The Boxtrolls (2014) and The Jungle Book (2016). Beginning with Iron Man 3 in 2013, Kingsley has portrayed Trevor Slattery in the Marvel Cinematic Universe across multiple projects, including the short film All Hail the King (2014), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and the Disney+ series Wonder Man.

Kingsley received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his television work, covering his performances in Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (1989), Joseph (1995), Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001), and Mrs. Harris (2006). His career accolades also include a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, as well as two Laurence Olivier Award nominations. He was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the British film industry, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010, and was presented with the Britannia Award in 2014.