Clive Owen
Owen at the 2005 San Sebastian International Film Festival
Born	(1964-10-03) 3 October 1964 (age 47) Coventry, West Midlands, England, UK
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1987–present
Spouse	Sarah-Jane Fenton (m. 1995) «start: (1995)»"Marriage: Sarah-Jane Fenton to Clive Owen" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Clive_Owen) 2 daughters

Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor, who has worked on television, stage and film. He first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for portraying the lead in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991. He then garnered critical acclaim for his work in the film Close My Eyes (1991) before getting international notice for his performance as a struggling writer in Croupier (1998). In 2005, Owen won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his appearance in the drama Closer (2004). He has since played leading roles in films such as Sin City (2005), Inside Man (2006), Children of Men (2006), and The International (2009).

Early life[link]

The fourth of five brothers, Owen was born in Coventry, in the English Midlands, a son of Pamela (née Cotton) and Jess Owen, a country and western singer of Welsh descent. His father left the family when Owen was three years old, and despite a brief reconciliation when Owen was nineteen, the two have remained estranged.^[1] Raised by his mother and stepfather, a railway ticket clerk,^[2] he has described his childhood as "rough."^[1] While initially opposed to drama school, he changed his mind in 1984, after a long and fruitless period of searching for work. Owen graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1987^[3] with a class that included Rebecca Pidgeon, Serena Harragin, Mark Womack, and Liza Tarbuck. After graduation, he won a position at the Young Vic, performing in several Shakespearean plays.^[4]

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Initially, Owen carved out a career in television. In 1988 Owen starred as Gideon Sarn in a BBC production of Precious Bane and the Channel 4 film Vroom before the 1990s saw him become a regular on stage and television in the UK, notably his lead role in the ITV series Chancer, followed by an appearance in the Thames Television production of Lorna Doone.

He won critical acclaim for his performances in the 1991 Stephen Poliakoff film Close My Eyes – in which he has a full frontal nude scene – about a brother and sister who embark on an incestuous love affair. He subsequently appeared in The Magician, Class of '61, Century, Nobody's Children, An Evening with Gary Lineker, Doomsday Gun, Return of the Native and then a Carlton production called Sharman, about a private detective. In 1996, he appeared in his first major Hollywood film The Rich Man's Wife alongside Halle Berry before finding international acclaim in a Channel 4 film directed by Mike Hodges called Croupier (1998). In Croupier, he played the title role of a struggling writer who takes a job in a London casino as inspiration for his work, only to get caught up in a robbery scheme. In 1999, he appeared as an accident-prone driver in Split Second, his first BBC production in a decade.

Clive Owen at the Berlin Film Festival, 2009

He then starred in The Echo, a BBC1 drama. He starred in a film called Greenfingers about a criminal who goes to work in a garden, before appearing in the BBC1 mystery series Second Sight. In 2001, he provided the voice-over for a BBC2 documentary about popular music through the years called Walk On By, as well as starring in a highly-acclaimed theatre production called A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, about a couple with a severely handicapped daughter.

He became well known to North American audiences in the summer of 2001 after starring as The Driver in The Hire, a series of short films sponsored by BMW and made by prominent directors. He then appeared in Robert Altman's Gosford Park, alongside an all-star cast including Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ryan Phillippe. He appeared in the 2002 hit The Bourne Identity. In 2003, he teamed up with Hodges again to make I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. He starred in Beyond Borders and took on the title role in King Arthur, for which he took riding lessons.

Recognition and acclaim[link]

Owen appeared in the West End and Broadway hit play Closer, by Patrick Marber, which was produced as a film, and was released in 2005. He played "Dan" in the play, but was "Larry" the dermatologist in the film version. His portrayal of Larry in the film version earned him a lot of recognition and acclaim as well as the Golden Globe and BAFTA award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He noted that the expectations of him since the Oscar nomination have not changed the way he approaches film-making, stating "I try, every film I do, to be as good as I can and that's all I can do."^[5]

Clive Owen at the Toronto Film Festival, 2011

After Closer, he appeared in Derailed alongside Jennifer Aniston, the comic book thriller Sin City as the noir antihero Dwight McCarthy and as a mysterious bank robber in Inside Man. Despite public denials, Owen had long been rumoured to be a possible successor to Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond. A public opinion poll in the United Kingdom in October 2005 (SkyNews) found that he was the public's number one choice to star in the next installment of the series. In that same month, however, it was announced that fellow British actor Daniel Craig would become the next James Bond. In an interview in the September 2007 issue of Details, he claimed that he was never offered or even approached concerning the role.^[6] In 2006, Owen spoofed the Bond connection by making an appearance in the remake of The Pink Panther in which he plays a character named "Nigel Boswell, Agent 006" (when he introduces himself to Inspector Clouseau, he quips that Owen's character is "one short of the big time").

Owen at the Children of Men Premiere in Mexico City, 2006

In 2006, Owen starred in the highly acclaimed Children of Men,^[7] for which he received widespread praise. The film was nominated for various awards, including an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; Owen worked on the screenplay, although he was uncredited.^[8] The next year he starred alongside Paul Giamatti in the film Shoot 'Em Up and appeared as Sir Walter Raleigh opposite Cate Blanchett's Elizabeth I of England in the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age. He appeared in the Christmas special of the Ricky Gervais show Extras, as revealed in the video podcast teaser. Owen starred in The International (2009), a film which he described as a "paranoid political thriller".^[9] He then played the lead in The Boys Are Back,^[10] an Australian adaptation of the book The Boys Are Back In Town by Simon Carr.

In April 2010, he was cast as the lead in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's horror-thriller Intruders.^[11]

In June 2010 it was announced that Owen and Nicole Kidman will star in an HBO film about Ernest Hemingway and his relationship with Martha Gellhorn entitled Hemingway & Gellhorn. James Gandolfini served as executive producer to the film, written by Barbara Turner and Jerry Stahl. The film was directed by Philip Kaufman.^[12]

Owen shot Shadow Dancer^[13], joint Irish UK production about a young mother who is heavily involved with the Irish republican Movement. She is arrested in London following an aborted bombing attempt and must either choose to inform on her family or spend the rest of her life behind bars. The film also stars Andrea Riseborough, Gillian Anderson and Aidan Gillen and is being directed by James Marsh.

Personal life[link]

In an incident he later described as "very schmaltzy", Owen met his future wife, actress Sarah-Jane Fenton, when they performed the leads in Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic.^[14] The couple married on 6 March 1995 and live in Highgate, London and Wrabness, north Essex, with their two daughters – Hannah and Eve.^{[citation needed]}

In November 2006,^[15] he became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema in Harwich, Essex, England and launched an appeal for funds to repair deteriorating elements of the fabric.^[16][17]

He enjoys the music of indie rock band Hard-Fi and has been seen at two of their concerts, Brixton Academy, 15 May 2006^[18] and Wembley Arena, 18 December 2007. He is also an avid Liverpool F.C fan.^[19]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Clive Owen

• Clive Owen at the Internet Movie Database
• Clive Owen at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Clive Owen on Charlie Rose (15 December 2006) at Google Videos (Adobe Flash video)