Ben Kingsley's birthday: Revisiting his celebrated award-winning roles
The Indian cinephile community best knows Sir Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi from Richard Attenborough's critically acclaimed film Gandhi (1982). However, in his long and striking career in Hollywood, Kinglsey has delivered several amazing performances. Recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA, and two Golden Globes, among others, Kingsley today stands as a living artistic legend. On his birthday, you should re-watch these projects.
'Gandhi' (1982)
Though Kingsley has been nominated for an Academy Award a couple of times, he brought the golden statuette home only for his career-defining portrayal of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in Gandhi. The biographical drama, a co-production between India and the United Kingdom, starred Indian, English, and American actors. Interestingly, it might have felt like homecoming for Kingsley, since his father hails from Jamnagar, Gujarat.
'Sexy Beast' (2002)
Kingsley became the recipient of multiple awards—Best Supporting Actor from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Florida Film Critics Circle, and Toronto Film Critics Association, among others—for his role as Don Logan in Sexy Beast. In this stylish crime drama film helmed by Jonathan Glazer, Kingsley enraptured the audience with his performance of a sociopath and a recruiter for the London underworld gangs.
'Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story' (1989)
This biopic of Holocaust survivor-Nazi hunter-writer Simon Wiesenthal won Kingsley the Golden Camera Award for Best International Actor. The IMDb premise of the film reads, "From his imprisonment in a Nazi Concentration Camp, the film follows his liberation and his rise to become one of the leading Nazi hunters in the world, bringing such criminals to justice as Adolf Eichmann and Klaus Barbie."
'Anne Frank: The Whole Story' (2001)
Kingsley's gravitation toward toying with historical subjects became apparent once again when he starred in Anne Frank: The Whole Story. For this, he picked up a Screen Actors Guild Award in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie category. Directed by Robert Dornhelm, the two-part television series was based on Melissa Müller's book Anne Frank: The Biography (1998).
