Ben Kingsley: After more than 40 movies he's unleashed his inner beast

Interview, Feb, 2002 by Mira Sorvino

As the annual awards season kicks off this month with Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, among others, it seems fitting to sit down with Ben Kingsley, an actor who will all but certainly be a part of those ceremonies.

Kingsley's exceptional performance in this past year's Sexy Beast has both audiences and critics buzzing. Loudly. While he is still associated with Gandhi (1982), for which he won great acclaim and the Best Actor Oscar, Sexy Beast has helped Kingsley to move away-somewhat--from that character's enormous shadow. But to simply reflect on what has been would be shortsighted; there's much more in store for Kingsley. He'll next be seen opposite his friend and, here, interviewer, Mira Sorvino in The Triumph of Love, a period comedy set in the 18th century, and recently wrapped Tuck Everlasting with Sissy Spacek and William Hurt. And of course, there's the promise of all those award shows.

SCOTT LYLE COHEN

MIRA SORVINO: Let's talk for a moment about our work together in [the upcoming film] The Triumph of Love. Your character and his your sister are anti-love and pro-reason philosophers. I'm a princess in disguise as a boy and I try and steal the heart of the prince you protect. In so doing, I must convince the two of you that my motives are good. When that doesn't work, I seduce both of you, and the prince.

By the time you had gotten to the set, I was already well into the seduction of the other two characters, so I decided, "I have to do something completely different with Ben. This has to be pure sex, throwing myself at him like the worst tart in history." I remember the day that I crawled across the desk to get to you [laughs] and your unexpected responses to that. One of the things I admire most about you is that you take human weaknesses and explore them so far as to make them almost admirable emblems of humanity.

BEN KINGSLEY: That's a very generous thing to say. Thank you. I always try to find something I admire about every character I play. What I quite admired about [my character in The Triumph of Love] Hermocrates, was that he was a wonderful combination of narcissism and lack of self-worth. I decided that Hermocrates was so in love that he didn't mind making a complete fool of himself. I find that very touching.

MS: After we wrapped, someone said to me, "It must have been very difficult for you to work with all of those British actors--your methodology must have been different." And I said, "Maybe, but it seemed to jibe perfectly." I may never have had so much fun as in my sparring matches with you. I'm sure our training was different, but did you, in your recollection of the experience, feel like, "Well, that's an Americanism and this is the way that we do it"?

BK: No, not at all. I think that various styles and methods and approaches are an invention of people who don't understand the process of acting and who try very hard to label things. It's rather like people who desperately try and explain a painting to me when I just want them to shut up so I can just experience it. I can see color, I can see form, I can see tone, and if the painting moves me, I do not want the commentary.

We are adjusters. We empathize, we change rhythm and above all we listen to our fellow actors--if they're good actors. There is a much deeper kinship in motive and approach than people give us credit for. I found working with you challenging; we worked extremely hard.

MS: Well, let me say that I finally saw Sexy Beast recently, and your character in that film quite frightened me. There is a really scary person there. Where did you find him?

BK: I found him inside, with very little research at all. He is the darkest side of me that I had an opportunity to visit, and I've found him very empowering to play. My first step was to find the wounded child inside, and then all the subsequent steps fitted in after that. (My character] Don Logan is a man who is desperate to be loved, who is desperate to love, desperate to be needed, to have a role, to be seen and admired. And I think that the wounded child inside him has turned into a screaming psychopath because those wounds have never been addressed.

MS: There was something about the character that was like a world leader gone wrong. I thought it was interesting that you, the man who for awhile personified the master of peace [Gandhi], could play someone who had such an all-engulfing pain that he could literally destroy everything.

BK: The only thing that's inhibited Don Logan from being a leader is that he cannot control his violent mood swings. He would have always remained a sergeant major, he'd never be a general. He'll always be a well-oiled cog in a much-grated machine, but he'll never be Mr. Black Magic himself. He'll never be Napoleon.

MS: Right, because his emotions get to him too much. I think it is interesting that with his role you may have broken through to a whole different generation. How does it feel :o be so cool? [both laugh]

BK: It feels wonderful. I have a 19-year-old son who's in his second year at the Royal Academy f Dramatic Art, and he went with a group of friends to see the film. They all went into a bar afterwards and they were using Don Logan's language to spar off each other and to order their drinks. I've met many drama students in London and young actors in America, all of whom have used words like "awesome," "chilling," "wicked." It's lovely because it's a generation that I feel a kinship with through my children and it's very gratifying to be able to reach out to them in a new and refreshed way