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Curated category

English male stage actors

  • William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare signed his last will and testament on the 25th of March 1616, describing himself in it as being in "perfect health." Within a month he…
  • Jude LawJude Law was born David Jude Heyworth Law on the 29th of December 1972, in the London borough of Lewisham, and his first name came from a person none of his…
  • Robin Atkin DownesRobin Atkin Downes keeps a personal YouTube channel where he posts behind-the-scenes footage from his years of screen and voice work.
  • Ian McKellenIan McKellen was nine years old when his main Christmas present arrived: a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, complete…
  • Lord Chamberlain's MenLord Chamberlain's Men gathered for the first time around 1594, in a city of roughly 200,000 people where more than 15,000 men and women attended plays every…
  • Tom HardyTom Hardy walked into a modelling competition in 1998 at 21 years old and walked out with a contract. That is not how most serious actors begin.
  • John GielgudOn the evening of the 20th of October 1953, John Gielgud was arrested in Chelsea for cruising for sex in a public lavatory, an act that was then a crime in…
  • Peter O'ToolePeter O'Toole holds a record no actor would wish for. He received eight Academy Award nominations for Best Actor across four decades, and never won a single…
  • Benedict CumberbatchBenedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born on the 19th of July 1976 at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in Hammersmith, London. His parents were both actors.
  • Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier was born on the 22nd of May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest child of a nomadic Church of England clergyman who never quite found…
  • Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis was born on the 29th of April 1957 in Kensington, London, to a poet and an actress. Before most people had ever heard his name, he was…
  • Alan RickmanAlan Sidney Patrick Rickman was born on the 21st of February 1946 in Brentford, London, and he spent his early years in the shadow of Wormwood Scrubs Prison…
  • Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness walked onto a stage for the first time on his 20th birthday, the 2nd of April 1934, earning a single pound a week and permitted to utter just…
  • Michael FlandersMichael Henry Flanders stood six feet three inches tall, was a fine oarsman and quarter-miler, and by the time he reached Oxford his contemporaries had no…
  • Henry CondellWilliam Shakespeare bequeathed Henry Condell money for a mourning ring. So did Augustine Phillips. Nicholas Tooley and Alexander Cooke went further, naming…
  • Ben KingsleyBen Kingsley was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji on the 31st of December 1943, in Snainton, North Riding of Yorkshire. He carries within him a world of…
  • Idris ElbaIdris Elba was born Idrissa Akuna Elba on the 6th of September 1972 in the London Borough of Hackney, the only child of a Sierra Leonean father who worked at…
  • Patrick StewartPatrick Stewart grew a moustache for the role of Macbeth, and when he looked in the mirror just before going on stage, he saw his father's face staring…
  • Andy SerkisAndy Serkis was born Andrew Clement Serkis on the 20th of April 1964, in Ruislip Manor, Middlesex. His father, Clement, was an Iraqi-Armenian gynaecologist…
  • William KempeWilliam Kempe was the most famous clown in Elizabethan England, and almost nobody today knows his name. He performed alongside William Shakespeare and…
  • Richard BurbageRichard Burbage played Hamlet, Othello, Richard III, King Lear, and Macbeth, all in their first-ever performances, and yet most people today have never heard…
  • John HemingesJohn Heminges appears in Shakespeare's will alongside two other men. Richard Burbage and Henry Condell each received the same bequest: 26 shillings and…
  • Robert ArminRobert Armin stepped onto the Globe stage in August 1600, and nothing about the clown in English theatre was ever quite the same again.
  • Simon CallowSimon Callow was born on the 15th of June 1949 in Streatham, South London, and his path into acting began not in a classroom or a casting office, but with a…