Cary Elwes

One of Elwes's relatives is the British miser John Elwes, who was the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1843), having been referenced by Charles Dickens himself in chapter six of his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend.

His paternal grandfather was the portrait painter Simon Elwes, whose own father was the diplomat and tenor Gervase Elwes (1866–1921).

One of Elwes's great-grandfathers was the 1st Baron Rennell, while one of his great-great-grandfathers was the 8th Earl of Denbigh.

Elwes has English, Irish, Scottish, Croatian-Jewish, and Serbian ancestry, the latter two from his maternal grandmother, Daška McLean, whose second husband, Billy McLean, was an operative for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War.

His paternal relatives include such clerics as Dudley Charles Cary-Elwes (1868–1932), the Bishop of Northampton, and Abbot Columba Cary-Elwes (Ampleforth Abbey, Saint Louis Abbey).

Ivan Simon Cary Elwes (born 26 October 1962) is an English actor.

Ivan Simon Cary Elwes was born on 26 October 1962 in Westminster, London.

He is the youngest of three sons of portrait painter Dominic Elwes and interior designer and socialite Tessa Kennedy.

Elwes is the brother of artist Damian Elwes and film producers Cassian Elwes and Milica Kastner.

His stepfather, Elliott Kastner, was an American film producer and the first American to set up independent film production in the United Kingdom.

In 1975, when Elwes was 13, his father died by suicide.

He was educated at Harrow School, and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

In 1981, he moved to the United States to study acting at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

While living there, Elwes studied acting at both the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute under the tutelage of Al Pacino's mentor, Charlie Laughton (not to be confused with English actor Charles Laughton).

As a teenager, he also worked as a production assistant on the films Absolution, Octopussy, and Superman, where he was assigned to Marlon Brando.

When Elwes introduced himself to the actor, Brando insisted on calling him "Rocky" after Rocky Marciano.

Elwes made his acting debut in 1984 with Marek Kanievska's film Another Country, which was loosely based on the English boarding school exploits of British spies Burgess, Philby and MacLean.

He played James Harcourt, a gay student.

He went on to play Guilford Dudley in the British historical drama film Lady Jane, opposite Helena Bonham Carter.

He is known for his leading film roles as Westley in The Princess Bride (1987), Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), and Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the Saw film series.

He was then cast as stable-boy-turned-swashbuckler Westley in Rob Reiner's fantasy-comedy The Princess Bride (1987), which was based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman.

It was a modest box office success, but received critical acclaim.

As a result of years of reviews, it earned a score of 97% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes.

Since being released on home video and television, the film has become a cult classic.

"Initially the studio didn't know how to market it. Was it an adventure? A fantasy? A comedy? A romance? A kids' movie? In the end they sold it as a kids' movie and it largely had to rely on word of mouth ... people tell me they still have their VHS copy that has been passed down from one generation to the next."

Elwes' other performances in films include Glory (1989), Hot Shots! (1991), Days of Thunder (1990), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Twister (1996), Kiss the Girls (1997), Liar Liar (1997), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), The Cat's Meow (2001), Ella Enchanted (2004), No Strings Attached (2011), BlackBerry (2023), and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023).

He has appeared on television in a number of series including The X-Files, Seinfeld, From the Earth to the Moon, Psych, and Life in Pieces.

Elwes continued to work steadily, varying between dramatic roles, such as in the Oscar-winning Glory (1989), and comedic roles, as in Hot Shots! (1991).

He played a rival driver to Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder (1990).

Elwes then appeared in supporting roles in such films as Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), The Crush (1993), The Jungle Book (1994), Twister (1996), Liar Liar (1997), and Kiss the Girls.

In 1993, he starred as Robin Hood in Mel Brooks's comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

In 1999, he portrayed famed theatre and film producer John Houseman for Tim Robbins in his ensemble film based on Orson Welles's musical, Cradle Will Rock.

Following that, he travelled to Luxembourg to work with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire.

He discussed this in an interview while he was filming the 2005 CBS television film Pope John Paul II, in which he played the young priest Karol Wojtyła.

Elwes's parents divorced when he was four years old.

Elwes himself played five roles in the 2009 film adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Through his maternal grandfather, Elwes is also related to Sir Alexander William "Blackie" Kennedy, one of the first photographers to document the archaeological site of Petra following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Elwes was brought up as a Catholic and was an altar boy at Westminster Cathedral.

Elwes has written a memoir of his time working on The Princess Bride called As You Wish, which was published in 2014.

In 2019, he appeared in the Netflix drama series Stranger Things and the Amazon Prime comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.