Film and Television Career
Kingsley began his acting career on stage, but made a transition to film roles early on. Despite this focus on film, he continued to act on the stage, playing Mosca in Peter Hall's 1977 production of Ben Jonson's Volpone for the Royal National Theatre, and in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. At about this time, he changed his name from Krishna Pandit Bhanji to Ben Kingsley, fearing that a foreign name would hamper his career; he took his stage surname from his paternal grandfather's nickname, "King Clove". He starred in the role of Willy Loman in a 1982 production of Death of a Salesman in Sydney opposite Mel Gibson.
Kingsley's first film role was a supporting turn 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. He found fame only years later, starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the Academy Award-winning film Gandhi in 1982, his best-known role to date. The audience agreed with the critics, and Gandhi was a box-office success. Kingsley won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal.
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 voice talent for 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 the show, Christopher Moltisanti and Carmine Lupertazzi offer him a role in the fictional slasher film Cleaver, which he turns down. Lupertazzi offers him the role on the basis of Kingsley's real-life performance in Sexy Beast.
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 has worked voicing a character named Sabine in Lionhead Studios game Fable III, and starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, directed by Martin Scorsese. He appeared in Scorsese's next film, Hugo, and has signed up to appear in the new feature by Neil Jordan and John Boorman entitled Broken Dream.
Kingsley's SBK-Pictures has been planning to bring the story of the Native American Conley sisters to the big screen in Whispers Like Thunder, with Kingsley playing the role of Charles Curtis, the first part-Native American to become vice-president of the United States.
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