page_title: Ben Kingsley
section_title: Film and television
hierarchical_section_title: Ben Kingsley / Career / Film and television
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: L'attore Ben Kingsley alla Mostra del cinema di Venezia del 1990
context_page_description: Sir Ben Kingsley is an English actor. Throughout his career which spans over five decades, he has garnered numerous awards and nominations, including a Grammy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award, and an Academy Award from four nominations.
  Beginning his career in theatre, Kingsley joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and spent the next 15 years appearing mainly on stage. His starring roles included productions of As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
  In film, Kingsley is best known for his starring role as Mohandas Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which he subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Actor and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also appeared as Itzhak Stern in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler's List, receiving a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Subsequent roles have included Twelfth Night, Sexy Beast, House of Sand and Fog, Thunderbirds, Lucky Number Slevin, Shutter Island, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Hugo, The Dictator, Iron Man 3 and Ender's Game.
context_section_description: Kingsley made the transition to film roles early on, with his first role coming in Fear Is the Key, released in 1972. Kingsley continued starring in bit roles in both film and television, including a role as Ron Jenkins on the soap opera Coronation Street from 1966 to 1967 and regular appearances as a defence counsel in the long-running British legal programme Crown Court. In 1975, he starred as Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the BBCs historical drama The Love School and appeared in the TV miniseries Dickens of London the following year. He found fame as Mohandas Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi in 1982. The film was a critical and financial success, and Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, for his performance.
  Kingsley has since appeared in a variety of roles. His credits included the films Turtle Diary, Maurice, Pascali's Island, Without a Clue (as Dr. Watson alongside Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes), Suspect Zero, Bugsy (nominated for Best Supporting Actor), Sneakers, Dave, Searching for Bobby Fischer, Schindler's List, Silas Marner, Death and the Maiden, Sexy Beast, for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and House of Sand and Fog, which led to an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He won a Crystal Globe award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2001.
  In 1997, he provided a voice in the video game Ceremony of Innocence. In 1998, he was the head of the jury at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival. In July 2006, he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in the made-for-TV film Mrs. Harris, in which he played famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower, who was murdered by his jilted lover, Jean Harris. Later that year, Kingsley appeared in an episode of The Sopranos entitled "Luxury Lounge", playing himself. In 2007, Kingsley appeared as a Polish American mobster in the Mafia comedy You Kill Me, and a hitman in War, Inc.
  In 2010, Kingsley worked voicing a character named Sabine in Lionhead Studios game Fable III and starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scorsese. The same year Kingsley made his Bollywood debut in the thriller Teen Patti. In 2011 he appeared in Scorsese's next film, Hugo, and signed up to appear in a new feature by Neil Jordan and John Boorman entitled Broken Dream. In 2013, he appeared as Trevor Slattery in Iron Man 3, and as the hero Mazer Rackham in Ender's Game. Kingsley's 2014 film roles included Exodus: Gods and Kings, as Nun, a Hebrew slave, and Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, as Merenkahre, a simulacrum of an Egyptian pharaoh and father of Ahkmenrah (in one scene, the character discusses his Hebrew slaves).
  In 2015, Kingsley played a Sikh driving instructor in the film Learning to Drive. He voiced Bagheera in the live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau and recorded Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi in book-on-tape format. In 2018, Kingsley was the narrator for Amazon Prime's documentary All or Nothing: Manchester City which followed Manchester City's record breaking 2017–18 Premier League campaign.
caption: Kingsley at the 1990 Venice Film Festival
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