Ben Kingsley

Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an Indian-English actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning seven decades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the British film industry. He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and received the Britannia Award in 2014.

Born to an English mother and an Indian Gujarati father with roots in Jamnagar, Kingsley began his career in theatre, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and spending the next 15 years appearing mainly on stage. His starring roles included productions of As You Like It (his West End debut for the company at the Aldwych Theatre in 1967), Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Also known for his television roles, he received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his performances in Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story (1989), Joseph (1995), Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001), and Mrs. Harris (2006).

In film, Kingsley is principally known for his starring role as Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. For his portrayal of Itzhak Stern in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), he received a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role nomination. He was Oscar-nominated for Bugsy (1990), Sexy Beast (2000), and House of Sand and Fog (2003). His other notable films include Maurice (1987), Sneakers (1992), Dave (1993), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), Death and the Maiden (1994), Twelfth Night (1996), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Tuck Everlasting (2002), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Elegy (2008), Shutter Island (2010), and Hugo (2011).

Kingsley has played the character of Trevor Slattery in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for over a decade, appearing in the films Iron Man 3 (2013) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), the short film All Hail the King (2014), and the Disney+ series Wonder Man (2026). He also acted in the blockbusters Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), and Ender's Game (2013) and provided his voice in the films The Boxtrolls (2014) and The Jungle Book (2016).