23 Jul 2015

Learning to Drive - interview with Sir Ben Kingsley

From At The Movies, 7:40 pm on 23 July 2015

Learning to Drive stars two people who know what they're doing - Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley… and it turns out the versatile Sir Ben hasn't quite played everything yet… Simon Morris talks to the actor.

When Sir Ben Kingsley made his extraordinary film debut in, and as, Mahatma Gandhi - two Golden Globes, two Baftas and one Academy Award - everyone in Hollywood who knew anything predicted that it would be too hard an act to follow.

But of course nobody in Hollywood knows anything. Sir Ben's career has been as extensive as it's been astonishing in range - from Schindler's List to Sexy Beast, from House of Sand and Fog to Hugo, where he played French film pioneer Georges Melies.  I have very fond memories of him upending expectations in Iron Man 3, blending horrific menace and knockabout comedy in one role.

This week, Sir Ben Kingsley returns in a sweet little film called Learning To Drive, playing a Sikh taxi-driver opposite old friend Patricia Clarkson.

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