Curated playlist
Male actors from London
- David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
- Jude LawJude Law dropped out of school at 17 to become an actor. It led to an Oscar nomination for The Talented Mr. Ripley.
- Robin Atkin DownesRobin Atkin Downes voiced Cham Syndulla across three separate Star Wars series.
- Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
- Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin was in a workhouse twice before he turned nine. By 26 he was among the world's highest-paid people.
- Michael CaineMichael Caine took his stage name from a cinema sign he saw while phoning from a Leicester Square telephone box.
- Tom HardyTom Hardy put on 42 pounds to play the English prisoner Charles Bronson. Bronson sent him his shaved-off mustache.
- John GielgudJohn Gielgud was arrested months after being knighted. Backstage in Liverpool, he feared he could not face an audience.
- Joey AnsahJoey Ansah fought Matt Damon in The Bourne Ultimatum and did all his own stunts. It earned a Best Fight nomination.
- Sacha Baron CohenSacha Baron Cohen spilled flour on Ryan Seacrest at the Oscars. He claimed it was Kim Jong-il's ashes.
- Tom HiddlestonTom Hiddleston is a British actor who once played Hamlet in a theatre of just 160 seats, with tickets given out by lottery to raise money for RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. The run lasted three weeks in September 2017. Millions…
- Salman RushdieA fatwa ordering Salman Rushdie's execution was broadcast on Radio Tehran on Valentine's Day 1989.
- Robert PattinsonRobert Pattinson is a British actor whose films have earned more than $4.7 billion worldwide. A teacher once advised him to stay out of his school drama club. He was born in London on the 13th of May 1986 and later ranked among the world's…
- Benedict CumberbatchA play titled Benedict Cumberbatch Must Die was meant as a love letter to his fans.
- Andrew GarfieldAndrew Garfield, the English and American actor born on the 20th of August 1983, very nearly never acted at all. He had planned to study business. At 16, a friend talked him into taking theatre studies at A-level, because the class was…
- Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis collapsed sobbing during a 1989 Hamlet, in the scene where the ghost of Hamlet's father appears.
- John BoyegaJohn Boyega once left his Rise of Skywalker script in a hotel room, and it turned up on eBay.
- Alan RickmanAlan Rickman almost turned down Die Hard. He took the villain role of Hans Gruber anyway.
- Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness privately called Star Wars "fairy-tale rubbish" in letters to friends.
- Slash (musician)Slash, the guitarist born Saul Hudson in Hampstead, London, on the 23rd of July 1965, owes his famous name to a restless child. The actor Seymour Cassel gave him the nickname because the boy was "always in a hurry, zipping around from one…
- Phil CollinsPhil Collins is the only artist who performed at both Live Aid concerts on the 13th of July 1985. He crossed between London and Philadelphia by helicopters and a Concorde to do it. Born Philip David Charles Collins, he went on to sell an…
- Michael FlandersOxford refused Michael Flanders re-entry after polio left him in a wheelchair. He became a stage comedian instead.
- 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…
- Tom HollandTom Holland, the English actor, has led films that together have grossed more than $9.9 billion worldwide, according to The Numbers. That total places him among the highest-grossing film actors of all time. In 2019 he appeared on the…
- Nicholas GalitzineNicholas Galitzine, the English actor whose surname is pronounced GAL-it-seen, once ate food worth 4000 calories every single day. The reason was a role that demands an outsized physique: He-Man, hero of the live action film Masters of the…
- KSIKSI once answered his teacher's question about quitting college with a single figure: around £1,500 a month, earned from YouTube. That, he said, was more than the teacher took home. He recounted the exchange in a 2014 interview. The…
- Idris ElbaIdris Elba spent a night locked alone in a cell on Robben Island. He did it to prepare to play Nelson Mandela.
- Daniel RadcliffeDaniel Radcliffe, an English actor born on the 23rd of July 1989, played Harry Potter in all eight films of the series between 2001 and 2011. When he was around 14 or 15, he and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were offered the…
- 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…
- Tim CurryTim Curry titled his memoir Vagabond, and Grand Central Publishing released it on the 14th of October 2025. When a fan asked about the title, the English actor and singer offered two reasons. In the 17th and 18th centuries, he said, actors…
- Simon CallowSimon Callow's acting career began with a fan letter to Laurence Olivier. Olivier wrote back with a box-office job.
- Jamie Campbell BowerJamie Campbell Bower once needed up to eight hours of make-up work in a single day to become Vecna, the monstrous villain of the Netflix series Stranger Things. The man beneath the prosthetics is an English actor, singer, and guitarist. He…