Curated playlist
Actors awarded knighthoods
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was in a workhouse twice before he turned nine. By 26 he was among the world's highest-paid people.
- Ian McKellenIan McKellen came out as gay on BBC radio in 1988, while Parliament weighed Section 28.
- Michael CaineMichael Caine took his stage name from a cinema sign he saw while phoning from a Leicester Square telephone box.
- John GielgudJohn Gielgud was arrested months after being knighted. Backstage in Liverpool, he feared he could not face an audience.
- Anthony HopkinsAnthony Hopkins once delivered a seven-page courtroom speech in a single take on the set of Steven Spielberg's Amistad. The crew was astonished. Spielberg was so overawed that he could not bring himself to call the actor Tony, and he…
- Kenneth BranaghKenneth Branagh won an Oscar for a film about the Belfast he fled at age nine. He won Best Original Screenplay in 2022.
- Laurence OlivierLaurence Olivier's 1948 film Hamlet was the first non-American film to win Best Picture.
- Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis collapsed sobbing during a 1989 Hamlet, in the scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father appears.
- Jonathan PryceA drama school tutor said Jonathan Pryce would only play villains on Z-Cars. He was knighted in 2021.
- Ringo StarrRingo Starr's first drum was a cotton bobbin used to tap the cabinets by his hospital bed.
- Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness privately called Star Wars "fairy-tale rubbish" in letters to friends.
- Christopher LeeSir Christopher Lee was 91 years and 6 months old when his single "Jingle Hell" entered the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart at number 22. Press attention then pushed it up to number 18, which made him the oldest person to have a top 20…
- Ben KingsleyBen Kingsley turned down an offer to become a pop star in 1966. He auditioned for the Royal Shakespeare Company instead.
- Idris ElbaIdris Elba spent a night locked alone in a cell on Robben Island. He did it to prepare to play Nelson Mandela.
- Patrick StewartPatrick Stewart grew a moustache for Macbeth and saw his father's face in the mirror.
- Kevin SpaceyLate in the 1995 thriller Se7en, Kevin Spacey walks into the story as the serial killer John Doe, and most of the audience had no idea he was coming. His name was missing from the opening credits. It was missing from the film's…
- Sean ConnerySir Sean Connery was the first actor to play James Bond in the cinema, and the role followed him for the rest of his life. In 2009, he described a taxi ride during the Edinburgh Film Festival. The driver was amazed that Connery could name…
- Sam NeillSam Neill, the New Zealand actor, did not start out as Sam. At school he found that several other boys were named Nigel, and he decided the name sounded "a little effete for... a New Zealand playground". So he dropped it. The shorter name…
- Gary OldmanGary Oldman needed 200 hours in a makeup chair to become Winston Churchill. The transformation also took 14 pounds of silicone rubber. Then came US$20,000 worth of Cuban cigars, which left the actor with nicotine poisoning. Oldman, an…