Looking back over Ben Kingsley’s 50-year career offers an extreme variety of roles. He’s won an Oscar, been nominated for some Razzies, voiced a frog, played a caterpillar and even cropped up on Coronation Street.
It’s been hit and miss over the last few years, but 2016 is turning out to be vintage Kingsley, with the 72-year-old following his commanding voice work on The Jungle Book with a role opposite Patricia Clarkson in this week’s charming new comedy, Learning to Drive.
But what have been his greatest performances?
Gandhi
Kingsley spent the majority of his early career on stage, bar a few small and big-screen acting jobs such as Coronation Street, but at the age of 39, he had his mainstream breakthrough. In the role of Mahatma Gandhi for Richard Attenborough, he became a movie star instantly, winning an Oscar for his understated performance.
Schindler’s List
His next Oscar nomination was for an understated supporting role in Warren Beatty’s Bugsy in 1991 and two years later, he gave one of the most powerful performances in Steven Spielberg’s vital Holocaust drama. He resisted flourishes for a subdued but poigant turn as the man tasked with assembling the titular list.
Sexy Beast
With a set-up that sounded like more derivative cockney gangster dross (Ray Winstone’s former gangster gets tempted by one last job), no one could have predicted that this 2000 crime thriller would feel quite so fresh. Jonathan Glazer’s debut announced him as a unique film-maker and also gave Kingsley a fearsome, darkly funny villain to play and another Oscar nomination in the process.
House of Sand and Fog
Kingsley deservedly picked up another Oscar nomination for this almost unbearably bleak drama about the immigrant experience in the US. His portrayal of an Iranian general resorting to manual labour to provide for his family is quietly devastating and as his potential salvation, the profits of a house, turns to tragedy, his performance elevates the film to a dour heartbreaker.
Iron Man 3
While Shane Black’s Marvel threequel provided more wit than the second chapter, it still showed that there was only limited appeal in Robert Downey Jr’s smug superhero. But in a small yet scene-stealing turn, Kingsley made it worth enduring. A clever switcheroo, aided by a deceptive marketing campaign, saw Kingsley’s villain Mandarin revealed to be an elaborate performance and his real character unmasked as a buffoonish actor.
