Ben Kingsley

After earning an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two BAFTA Awards for his riveting portrayal of Indian social leader Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Ben Kingsley has continued to bring unequaled detail and nuance to each role he portrays, remaining a coveted and ubiquitous talent.

Steeped in British theatre, he marked the beginning of his professional acting career with his acceptance into the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967. He performed in the RSC's productions A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and – playing the title roles – Othello and Hamlet, among others. Over the years, his diverse theatrical portfolio has also encompassed stagings of The Country Wife, The Cherry Orchard, A Betrothal, and Waiting for Godot.

Sir Ben's film career began in l972 with the thriller Fear is the Key, directed by Michael Tuchner, but his first major role came a decade later in Gandhi, directed by Lord Richard Attenborough; in addition to his Best Actor Oscar, the epic won seven other Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. 11 years later, he would star in another Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Best Director, Steven Spielberg's unforgettable Schindler's List, for which his performance as Itzhak Stern brought him a BAFTA Award nomination. He was again an Academy Award nominee for his portrayals in Barry Levinson's Bugsy, Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast, and Vadim Perelman's House of Sand and Fog.

Among his many other feature films have been David Hugh Jones' Betrayal, adapted by Harold Pinter from the latter's play; John Irvin's Turtle Diary, again from a script by Mr. Pinter; Thom Eberhardt's Without a Clue, as Dr. Watson to Michael Caine's Sherlock Holmes; Brian Gibson's telefilm Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story, in which Sir Ben portrayed the real-life hero and for which he received an Emmy Award nomination; Ivan Reitman's Dave; Steven Zaillian's Searching for Bobby Fischer; Roman Polanski's Death and the Maiden and, as Fagin, Oliver Twist; John Schlesinger's telefilm The Tale of Sweeney Todd, for which his performance in the title role earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination; Phyllis Nagy's telefilm Mrs. Harris, for which he was again an Emmy Award nominee; Brad Anderson's Transsiberian and Stonehearst Asylum; Jonathan Levine's The Wackness, which won the Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival; Isabel Coixet's Elegy, for which he received a London Critics Circle Film Award nomination; Gavin Hood's Ender's Game; and Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island and Hugo, as cinema pioneer Georges Méliès in the latter, which won five Academy Awards.

Sir Ben's notable television work includes Anne Frank: The Whole Story, directed by Robert Dornhelm, which won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries. His portrayal of Anne Frank's father Otto Frank brought him a Screen Actors Guild Award.

In 2013, he starred in his first $1 billion-grossing movie, Shane Black's Iron Man 3, as "The Mandarin." Returning to the Marvel universe, he expanded upon the unique characterization in the short film All Hail the King, written and directed by Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearce.

Among Sir Ben's newer movies are Anton Corbijn's Life, in which he portrays Hollywood studio mogul Jack Warner; Robert Zemeckis' To Reach the Clouds, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit; Eran Creevy's Autobahn, starring alongside Anthony Hopkins; Tarsem Singh's Selfless; Ridley Scott's epic Exodus: Gods and Kings; Shawn Levy's Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; and Learning to Drive, reteaming him with his Elegy director Isabel Coixet and costar Patricia Clarkson.

In 1984, he was awarded the Padma Sri by Indira Gandhi and the government of India. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the New Year's Eve Honors List 2001. Sir Ben was honored in 2014 by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with its National Leadership Award, recognizing his exceptional contributions to keeping Holocaust memory alive.

Universal Pictures