Sir Ben Kingsley is one of the most talented and versatile of living actors. He won an Oscar for playing the title hero of the film Gandhi, and Oscar nominations for his roles in Bugsy, Sexy Beast and House of Sand and Frog. He is also known for his performances in Schindler’s List and Iron Man 3 among a panoply of consistently good roles, working with directors like Spielberg, Attenborough and Scorsese.
He has won an Oscar, Grammy, BAFTA, two Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Kingsley was made a Knight Bachelor for services to the British film industry.
In Sir Ben’s latest film, Learning to Drive, he plays a New York Sikh taxi driver and driving instructor. He enters an arranged marriage with a bride from India, while teaching driving to a just-separated lady critic.
He spoke exclusively to the Asian Voice at the Soho Hotel prior to the general release of Learning to Drive June10th 2016.
Early Life
Sir Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji in Scarborough, Yorkshire. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was a Kenyan-born Gujarati medical doctor. His mother, Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), was an English fashion model and actress.
How This Gifted Actor Focuses.
Sir Ben has just recently finished, “As often happens,” he said, “four films back to back. I learnt when I first started with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was in four plays at the same time, giving eight performances a week. That’s two performances of each play a week. I was holding a huge amount of material in my head. So I learnt to retreat from one role and advance towards another in a matter of 90 minutes.”
Ability to Relax
“Relaxing; I work with my gardener, I love cooking for my wife, and I love the domestic nourishing things of life.
I have a siesta during lunch time. I’ve learnt that the more I am relaxed, the better the character will flow through me. In my work, relax and focus come together.”
What about the challenges growing up?
“I think the challenges come to you, personally.
Let me tell you a story that posed an insurmountable challenge to me.
There was a most shockingly brilliant documentary when I was growing up in the north of England called War in the Air.
It was evidence and footage of World War 11. Towards the end, Larry Olivier was narrating the end of the Bergen concentration camp. I remember watching this episode alone in the house. I could feel my heart ceasing to beat for a few seconds. I was in deep deep shock. That same week, in the same kitchen, in the same house, I was alone with my grandmother in the kitchen. She said, ‘Hitler was right, he should have killed all the Jews.’ She was violently anti-Semitic and occasionally spoke Yiddish. Worked in the East End.
I again felt my metabolism shut down momentarily. How can a child, confronted with that kind of authority figure, hopefully the grandest and most beloved authority figure in one’s life, how can a child absorb that, having seen, days before, what he saw.”
Sir Ben feels that his roles in Murderers Amongst Us, Schindler’s List, and Anne Frank, The Whole Story, allowed him to redress the imbalance.
Why did he play these particular Nazi-era roles?
“I was doing it for the six million survivors. They’ve embraced me as one of their storytellers.
There is some kind of a gyroscope guiding me very strongly. ‘You stood your ground in the kitchen, you were unable to say something, now you can say it.’”
You’ve said publicly about a feeling of absence by your parents during your childhood, so with the Indian part of your ancestry, how connected do you feel to your Gujarati roots?
“I have no idea. Because the part- Jewish, part-English, part-Gujarati-Ismaili mix that I am is my normal. I cannot step outside myself. I find wonderful answers as perhaps, at my best I’m an artist sometimes.
Whatever question that I find myself unable to answer, one of my heroines is Tilda Swinton and I think she said in an interview; ‘Much of what we do is autobiographical.’
It’s probably true. So I think that all my connections with my tribe- which is massive, hopefully, will be reflected in my work. That’s my joy and mandate as a storyteller; to reflect, be a voice for, and a storyteller to, everybody.”
Sir Ben has played more Jews than Indians, despite his iconic role as Gandhi. Did he feel grateful that he has the Indian part of his heritage to draw on?
“Given my journey, I wouldn’t change anything. If that’s an expression of gratitude, so be it.
Even my grandmother in the kitchen has helped make me what I am. Because indignation can be a very powerful force, as well as the more benign feelings we have too. But that indignation that was inexpressible as a little boy, did find expression in later years.
Whatever it was that made me go from childhood to adolescence to young adult to acting, had to find an equally potent expression and I am eternally grateful that that expression was found. Because I hope, at my best, I’m a tribal storyteller. Not many of us find our small corner in the tribe.”
The creation of Darwan, Sir Ben’s current film character, and who it is for.
“I approached him as the eternal ferryman, who ferries you across the river from one bank to the other, and in whose company you learn something.
It’s for that wonderful moment in the audience when one or more members of the audience look at the screen and say, as I did when I was a little boy watching one of my first films, “How did you know about me?”
……………………………………………………………………………….
“The part- Jewish, part-English, part-Gujarati-Ismaili mix that I am is my normal. I cannot step outside myself.” Sir Ben Kingsley.
