44 Inch Chest
Although being a debut for Malcolm Venville, 44 Inch Chest, which is going to be released later this month, has an impressive cast, especially Ray Winstone and John Hurt. The gangster drama is one of the many forthcoming films featuring older British actors that are still in play.
So we decided to make a list of prominent British actors who are still doing quite well in their careers.
Ray Winstone
A leading actor in 44 Inch Chest, Ray Winstone, who is turning fifty-three this February, has a filmography dating back to 1979. His first role as Carlin in Scum (1979) was accidental as he was not planning to do it.
Alan Clarke, the director of Scum, noticed Winstone as he was walking down a corridor and liked the way he moved. And that was a start of his career. Over the last 30 years, Winstone took part in almost 110 films and TV series.
Winstone is famous for a diverse range of characters. Apart from playing hard-man roles in Scum, Sexy Beast (2000) and 44 Inch Chest (2010), he also took part in ITV drama as King Henry VIII.
The actor has been a fan of boxing since an early age. As a schoolboy, Winstone became a champion winning more than 80 medals.
John Hurt
Son of a clergyman, John Hurt was born in January 1940 in Shirebrook, Derbyshire. Although a local cinema ‘was right across the road from the Vicarage’, the children were allowed to go there.
“There was a certain Mrs. Fox-Robinson who had a television, which had a tiny screen and to me was totally captivating, and at every possible opportunity I got to go down there I took to watch whatever it was.
But it wasn't films, because they didn't show films then, it was just live performances and news. That was my first introduction to a screen of any sort,” said Hurt to the Guardian.
At the age 20 Hurt won a scholarship and went to study at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), one of the best in England. Starting with small TV episodes, he eventually starred in Alien, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Elephant Man and Midnight Express.
Throughout his five decades career, Hurt won a Golden Globe, three BAFTA Awards and was twice nominated for Academy Award.
His role as Old Man Peanut in 44 Inch Chest proves that John Hurt is still full of ideas even after 48 years of acting and almost 150 films.
Michael Caine
In contemporary cinema there are only two actors who have been nominated for Academy Award in every decade since the '60s and Michael Caine is one of them.
Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, who would later become world-famous under his stage name, was born in 1933. There is a fascinating story of how he came up with his stage name.
While speaking to his agent from a phone box in Leicester Square, he was asked to create a stage name to put on the contract. “So I just looked through the trees, at the Odeon Leicester Square, it just said Caine Mutiny. So, I just said: "Caine." If I'd gone to the Leicester Square theatre, I'd have been called Michael A Hundred and One Dalmatians!” he said.
Caine’s latest film, Harry Brown, was released in November 2009. The film focuses on a widowed Royal Marine veteran, who is fighting against youth crime. It is interesting that Caine himself served in the army during the Korean War.
Ian McKellen
The global audience knows McKellen mainly as Gandalf (Lord of the Rings trilogy), Magneto (X-Men films) and Sir Leigh Teabing (Da Vinci Code). However, he has also established himself as a prominent stage actor performing at various UK theatres including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre and the Old Vic.
It is true to say that McKellen is currently much more than just an actor. In 2008 he was listed by the Telegraph as one of "the 100 most powerful people in British culture". As a founding member of Stonewall, McKellen was also included in the Independent’s annual list of the most influential gay men and women.
It has been confirmed that McKellen would return as Gandalf in the upcoming Hobbit I, which is due to be released in 2011. Meanwhile he appeared in a new version of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at Haymarket Theatre in London.
Hugh Laurie
Laurie has been mostly known in Britain for A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. However, he achieved worldwide success in 2004 after he first appeared on TV as Dr. Gregory House.
Playing an US medical genius, Laurie has to perform with an American accent. According to USAToday, Bryan Singer, a producer of the series, was ‘unaware of the fact that Hugh was English.’
Launched in 2004, House M.D. is currently one of the most watched programmes in the world. So far, it has received almost 32 awards and 97 nominations. Laurie himself has been nominated for the Golden Globe award four times (won in 2006 and 2007).
In 1996 Laurie made a debut as a writer after his first novel The Gun Seller was published. It is said that his next novel The Paper Soldier is going to be published in the near future.
44 Inch Chest is released 15th January.
by Zair Kashek
Tagged in Ray Winstone