Ben Kingsley, English actor
Sir Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji; 31 December 1943) is an English actor. Throughout his career spanning over five decades, he has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.

Born to an English mother and a 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 (including Peter Brook’s 1970 RSC production of the play), Hamlet and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In film, Kingsley is known for his starring role as Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982), for which he subsequently won the Academy Award for Best Actor and BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He also appeared as Itzhak Stern in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler's List (1993), receiving a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Subsequent roles have included Twelfth Night (1996), Sexy Beast (2000), House of Sand and Fog (2003), Thunderbirds (2004), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Shutter Island (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hugo (2011), The Dictator (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), Ender's Game (2013) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021). He has also voiced Archibald Snatcher in The Boxtrolls (2014), and Bagheera in the live-action adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book (2016).

Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for services to the British film industry. In 2010, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2013, he received the Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment.