Ben Kingsley Turns 83 on December 31, and He Won an Oscar for Playing Gandhi

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Ben Kingsley turns 83 on December 31. He was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1943, and he trained as a stage actor before moving into films. He has since worked in drama, action, comedy and animation.

Photo: Christopher Harte, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Gandhi (1982) is the film that brought him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He played the title role in a long biographical film about the Indian independence leader, and the performance is still the reason many people know his name.

Photo: Joella Marano, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Schindler's List (1993) gave him a very different role. As Itzhak Stern, the accountant who helps the German businessman Oskar Schindler, he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The film is one of the most serious works of its director, Steven Spielberg.

Photo: Joella Marano, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sexy Beast (2000) showed a fierce, comic side of him, and he earned another Academy Award nomination for it. In later years he has appeared in films such as Shutter Island (2010) and in family films, including the voice of Bagheera in The Jungle Book (2016).

Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Which of his performances do you think is the strongest? Gandhi is the obvious choice, but Schindler's List and Sexy Beast are both worth a watch.