Ben Kingsley

Born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in 1943 to an English mother and a Gujarati father, Kingsley spent 15 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company starting in 1967, playing Hamlet, Richard III, and the West End canon. Richard Attenborough's Gandhi in 1982 changed the curve: the Academy Award made him a name, and he followed it with four more Oscar nominations across three decades - Bugsy, Sexy Beast, House of Sand and Fog - plus a BAFTA nod for Itzhak Stern in Schindler's List. He worked steadily in prestige (Shutter Island, Hugo) and blockbusters (Prince of Persia, Ender's Game), lent his voice to The Jungle Book, and since 2013 has played Trevor Slattery, a recurring joke character in the Marvel universe, through Iron Man 3, Shang-Chi, and the Wonder Man series. Knighted in 2002, he's spent seven decades proving that serious doesn't mean solemn.