interview

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

When I talked to Academy Award-winning actor Sir Ben Kingsley, he immediately gained my sympathy by saying that he was not a morning person. Nor am I, and it was 7:30 AM. Yet, when I asked what was the earliest time he had to get up he said:

I think it was probably, well sometimes I night shoot, we shoot through the night, love that. But sometimes, I would say, 4 AM , 4:14AM.

You just spend some time in New York, do you like New York?

Yes, I had just finished a film there about three weeks ago, and I really loved it.

What about your wife, and congratulations ( Sir Ben was married on September 3, 2007 to Daniela Lavender), does she like New York?

She does, and in fact she took time out of her busy schedule, and thank you for your congratulations Linda, it’s very sweet of you, and all the time I was filming in New York she was with me, she went to some great meetings in New York, but most of the time she spent on the set with me and I really love it when she is there because it just makes it less solitary, less lonely. I love filming and I can survive when she in not there but it is great when she is there. She won’t always be there because she has her own career. But it was great. I think, we both fell in love with New York because I think, the city changes, if you are in the city and you love being with the people, it is, it becomes very special city.

So how is LA?

That’s’ great. Because we have a little apartment in LA, Daniela and I, so we are very often together there too, and it’s an adventurous place. I like LA very much. I find it a city of hope, people come there to make their dream to come true. And I love that.


You high school experiences were not always pleasant, did the time influence who you have become?

I think so. I think, what’s helped, for better or for worse, make a man that I am now, is that is wasn’t necessarily hostile or violent, but there were some people, even to my younger years as an actor, who said to me: well, you know, you won’t do it, there is certain things you must accept you won’t be able to do. It wasn’t based on anything, I think, then jealousy on their part, because I was always very popular in school and as a young actor, but I was told, for example, I wouldn’t play leaders. Now there is a joke.

Yes, there is a joke.

I think, this is when I was about 20, before I did Othello and Hamlet and Gandhi and Wiesethal , and the list is endless, but I remember a little voice in me, I didn’t say it out loud, that anyone who tried to limit my aspirations and my ambitions, a little voice used to say: oh, you are so wrong.
So, I never went under. There is always something in me that is buoyant and afloat, some confidence, some love of life or some love of story telling because I always knew I’d be an actor, that was easy. Yeah, but I can, and one day I might actually do it, I hope you are watching Linda, if I am lucky enough to receive another award. I might stand up and say: I’d like to say “thank you” to all the people who said I wouldn’t do it.

And list them all, like list the school teacher, who was you know, and the little kid in school who said I won’t to this and that, and the theater director who told me I never play leaders.


Because you are too exotic, or you have an accent or…

No- yeah. Maybe, all these things, but honestly there was always this little voice inside me, it never came out into the open until years later, but I used to think: oh, you so wrong. Years later I proved them wrong, but it wasn’t a question of proving them wrong, it was a question of enjoying my wonderful life as an actor. I love my life as an actor and the other people who said that it wouldn’t work out, well, I am sorry for them because maybe they were projecting their own sense of failure onto me.

Or maybe they couldn’t accept that people, even if they are a little different, have the talent and the strength...

Yeah.

If you had to choose film or theater, which would it be?

I was 15 years in the theater. I started off with a beautiful role in the Shakespeare Company. I still have a love for Shakespeare, I still live in Shakespeare’s country. I have, we have, a beautiful home in the English country side, which is very close to Shakespeare country, and after 15 years in the theater, which I enjoyed very much, and they stretched me and my muscles and my imagination and my ambitions, I think those 15 years in the theater particularly the ethic in the Shakespeare’s company were a great preparation for playing Gandhi. A lot of people think that my preparation for playing Gandhi was India and history, it wasn’t, it was Shakespeare. The only way to prepare for a great role is to lump some Shakespeare, some great classical theater or have the imagination as an actor that would enable you to embrace great people. I thank my years in the theater, which helped me enormously with Gandhi, with Wiesethal, Shostakovich, with all the extraordinary people that I have been able to play. Because of Shakespeare, because of life in the theater. So, film came second, it was a glorious surprise.

It was more surprise that a choice?

Yes, because when I was on stage, I was performing with the Royal Shakespeare’s Company a huge play based on Charles Dickens' novel Nicolas Nickelby, huge play, and while I was on the stage I had a phone call, so I had to go the stage door to answer the call. I was literally on stage when the phone call came from Lord Attenborough, from Richard Attenborough, to play Gandhi. I had no idea in my head that it would happen, that one day I’ll get the phone call. Life is always a surprise. That is the one thing you can depend is surprise.

It’s lots of luck and hard work…

Oh, beautiful luck, and thanks you, a hard work, it is true, I think, the trouble with actors, one of the problems with being an actor, is that it is a hard job to make it look very, very easy, but actually it is quite hard. It’s hard, but we have make it look easy otherwise no one would believe it.


What about the craft that is behind the acting?

The craft, as I say, I have to take us back to the Royal Shakespeare Company. I have to take us back to my early years there, and my craft was greatly enhanced by a brilliant voice teacher Cicely Berry, she is a genius, she is one of the greatest voice teachers ever, and fortunately she taught me when I was a young actor. I had John Barton, John was a great director and a genius at interpreting Shakespeare’s writing and his verse, absolute genius, and then later on, within a couple of years, I was working with Peter Brook, surrounded by great actors, who would make Shakespeare sound like Mozart and then make Mozart sound like language, it was a miracle to be with them, and slowly, slowly I learned to breathe, I learned to stand, and learned to embrace my character . I learned to love my audience and the necessity to tell them stories. The need to tell the stories, not as luxury but as a vital necessity in life, and so slowly over those blessed years at the Royal Shakespeare Company that’s where I learned my craft. I did not go to a drama school, I went straight into being an actor. And my first great experience was with the Royal Shakespeare’s Company. Thanks heaven that it happened that way.

When does a film or play become real to you?

For me? It’s real in that it has its sense of urgency, it has its sense of purpose, it has its great joy, hopefully, it will have its moment of lightness and comedy and will have its moments of passion and examining of humane relationships but the reality for me is examining patterns human behavior. I know I am an actor I may sound like a pompous philosopher but I promise you I am not. I am just an actor who loves his job. And I rather not talk stupid, just to pretend that I don’t love my work and that I don’t see how deep it is. I do. and do love it. I always have and will, But yes the reality for me it is important for you to tell the stories to the audience in the right way so they will leave the theater or the cinema with their hearts lifted. That’s all.

You love history…

I do, I ‘ve been involved in many very important historical films. Of course the plight of the Jews during the European Holocaust it’s been a major part in my life, exploring Shostakovich during Stalin years, of course, exploring India and imperialism during the Gandhi years, I find history thrilling. At the moment I am reading a book on William Shakespeare, and I’ve managed to acquire the rights to the book, so I should hopefully be filming, Shakespeare’s life, playing Shakespeare on film, soon, well, soon, a year and half to two years, and it will be ready. But I am reading this book now and I am right back there in those fields and in those cottages smelling that wood and that meat cooking and the outhouses, I find history very touchable, I can touch it, it is not an abstraction to me.

The last film we have seen was The Last Legion…

I have made six films since. But-Last Legion- we filmed in Tunisia and also in Slovakia.
Tunisia for ancient Rome, which of course is Carthage, it was great to be so close to ancient Rome, and the landscape was so close to ancient Rome and even some of the ruins. But we brought a superb film set. Laurentis, did it for ancient Rome, he and his family, genius. And then we moved to Slovakia for the mountains. We were in a beautiful forrest. The High Tatras on the polish border, very beautiful. Because we wanted it to look like Cambria and North Cumberland where Hadrian Wall is in England, and it does, it looks very, very similar.

Tell me about a bit about Elegy.

It coming-out there. It won’t be released probably until the Berlin film festival, and don’t quote me too seriously on that, because we are still wondering exactly when to premiere it, in 2008, it won’t be this year. It’s a film based on Philip Roth’s novel called The Dying Animal and we may well to call Elegy The Dying Animal, we’ll see, and it is a relationship between myself and Penelope Cruz. Who is the most wonderful woman to work with. Beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, witty, very sensitive and the woman who directed it, Isobel Coixet, a wonderful woman, too.

I admire your ability to go through all the things that are in the way before you can make a film.

I do know, and you have to be driven as I say, by reality that needs to tell a story. And when the actors all get on the set, they must prepared make themselves vulnerable to one another and Penelope and I were. I think it is a lovely film.

Where would you vacation?

If I could vacation, I am gonna toss a coin and spin it around three times- and come out with a name- India.