The man of a thousand accents
Kingsley adds 'House of Sand and Fog' to gallery of characters
By Todd Leopold
CNN
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Ben Kingsley plays the upright former Iranian army officer Massoud Amir Behrani in "House of Sand and Fog."
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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Sir Ben Kingsley doesn't look like he can be just anybody -- and maybe that's his secret.
His face is too distinctive, his carriage too commanding, to be an Everyman disappearing into the crowd. In person he's polished and authoritative, even in the casual dress of a pinkish striped shirt and jeans.
In a December interview in Atlanta with co-star Shohreh Aghdashloo for their film "House of Sand and Fog," Kingsley, 60, speaks in elegant, thoughtful sentences, dissecting characters, culture and his profession, not dominating the room of reporters but effortlessly holding their attention nonetheless.
Yet he is the same man who can be just about anybody. He was the brutal killer Don Logan in "Sexy Beast"; the mousy but noble bookkeeper Itzhak Stern in "Schindler's List"; the slick, malevolent cybermillionaire Cosmo in "Sneakers"; Sherlock Holmes' companion Dr. Watson in "Without a Clue"; and, of course, Mahatma Gandhi in "Gandhi," for which he won an Oscar for best actor.
Yes, they call it "acting," but how does he do it?
It's all in the accent, says Kingsley. Finding the right voice -- his own voice, but with a twist -- can open a whole world of character.
"It's a jump I find most invigorating," he says. He compares the leap to that of a trapeze artist, gliding over the circus below.
In the case of "House of Sand and Fog," "I let go of the one called Ben and go to the one called Behrani," he says.
A delicate balance
Behrani gets into a dispute with Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly, center) over a house. His wife, Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), watches in concern.
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Behrani -- Massoud Amir Behrani -- is a former Iranian army officer who immigrated to the United States with his family after the Islamic Revolution. He is a proud, controlled man, marking even the purchase of a candy bar in a financial ledger, and hiding his working life -- a highway road crew laborer during the day, a convenience store clerk at night -- from his wife, son and just-married daughter to maintain his façade.
When he purchases a house at a county auction, he thinks the family can finally relax; he'll sell it for four times what he bought it for and begin a life as an independent businessman. But there's a hitch -- the county had seized the house from a hard-luck ne'er-do-well named Kathy Nicolo, and she's determined to get it back.
The pair find themselves in an escalating war when an unbalanced sheriff's deputy, Lester Burdon, falls in love with Nicolo and starts pushing on Behrani to relinquish his claim.
It's the kind of situation that makes the audience want to grab characters by their lapels and shake them before they take each other over a cliff, but -- as actress Aghdashloo notes -- these are people set in their ways. Her character, Behrani's wife, Nadi, is a traditional Iranian woman who would never question her husband, and Behrani wouldn't expect anything else.
"To me, [Behrani] assumes she wouldn't be able to carry on without him. I've witnessed women like Nadi, these desperate, depressed voiceless women," adds the actress, who was born in Iran.
Kingsley says he likes the film's decision not to take sides and shows remarkable empathy for all the characters. But as Behrani, he says, there was only one viewpoint.
"He was going to protect his family" at all costs, he says.
Versatile in comedy and music
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Kingsley played the villainous thug Don Logan in "Sexy Beast."
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Kingsley has earned a number of plaudits for his performance, including a Golden Globe nomination for best actor. He's expected to be among the front-runners for best actor when the Oscar nominations are announced January 27.
And yet, for all his success as an actor, his career could have taken a vastly different turn.
Kingsley, born Krishna Bhanji in Scarborough, England, was 23 when he served as narrator and composer for "A Smashing Day," a show produced by Beatles manager Brian Epstein. John Lennon and Ringo Starr came backstage to tell him how much they liked Kingsley's work, and he was encouraged by Epstein to front a band.
But he also had been offered work in a Chekhov play directed by Lindsay Anderson ("If ...," 1968; "O Lucky Man!" 1973), and he chose to pursue the latter.
Since becoming a movie star, he's seldom had a chance to show his musical chops on screen. Nor has he appeared in many comedies. He says he'd like to do more of both.
"I hadn't pushed it [the comedy] hard enough," he acknowledges, "but of the four films I have coming out, two are comedic performances."
One, he observes, is as a corrupt executive in "A Sound of Thunder," based on the Ray Bradbury short story. The other is as the villain in "Thunderbirds."
"Thunderbirds"? The '60s children's series with marionettes?
One and the same, says Kingsley. What's more, he had such a good time that, if he's offered "Thunderbirds II" or "III," he'll jump at them in a minute.
He says he'd also like to do a movie musical, and if someone wants to make a movie from Shakespeare, he'd love to try the role of Prospero from "The Tempest."
Such variety is the best part of the job, he says.
"As an actor ... if I embark on 'Once upon a time there was a man,' then that honor, or sense of honor, or loss of honor, or fall from grace, is where you keep the audience captivated and enthralled," he says.
"I think it's to do with being a storyteller. There are certain archetypes I find very compelling, and I have to tell those stories."
