Clive Owen

Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor.

Clive Owen was born on 3 October 1964 in Keresley, Coventry (then in Warwickshire), the fourth of five sons born to Pamela ( Cotton) and Jess Owen.

His father, a country and western singer, left the family when Owen was three years old, and despite a brief reconciliation when Owen was 19, the two have remained estranged.

He has described his childhood as "rough".

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.

After graduation, he worked at the Young Vic, performing in several Shakespearean plays.

Initially, Owen's career was in television.

In 1988, he 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 first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991.

He received critical acclaim for his work in the film Close My Eyes (1991) before earning international attention for his performance as a struggling writer in Croupier (1998).

He won critical acclaim for his performances in the Stephen Poliakoff film Close My Eyes (1991) 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 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 about a decade.

Owen starred in The Echo, a BBC1 drama, before starring in the film Greenfingers, about a criminal who goes to work in a garden.

He appeared in the BBC1 mystery series Second Sight.

In 2001, he provided the voice-over for Walk On By, a BBC2 documentary about popular music, as well as starring in a highly acclaimed theatre revival of Peter Nichols' play A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, about a couple with a severely handicapped daughter.

Owen became 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 appeared in Robert Altman's Gosford Park.

He appeared in the 2002 film The Bourne Identity.

In 2003, he reteamed with director Mike Hodges in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.

He starred in Beyond Borders as well as King Arthur in King Arthur, for which he learned to ride a horse.

He appeared in the Royal National Theatre debut of the hit play Closer, by Patrick Marber, which was produced as a film in 2004.

He played Dan in the play, and played Larry in the film version.

His portrayal of Larry in the film received very favourable reviews, as well as the Golden Globe and BAFTA awards, 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."

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 been rumoured to be a possible successor to Pierce Brosnan in the role of James Bond.

In 2005, he won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the drama Closer (2004).

Owen has played leading roles in films such as Sin City (2005), Derailed (2005), Inside Man (2006), Children of Men (2006), and The International (2009).

A public opinion poll in the United Kingdom in October 2005 by SkyNews found that he was the public's number one choice to star in the next instalment of the series.

In that same month, however, it was announced that fellow British actor Daniel Craig would become the next James Bond.

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").

In an interview in the September 2007 issue of Details, he claimed that he was not offered or approached concerning the role.

In 2012, he earned his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his role in Hemingway & Gellhorn.

He played Dr. John W. Thackery on the Cinemax medical drama series The Knick, for which he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama nomination.

In 2021, Owen starred in the psychological romance horror miniseries Lisey's Story and also portrayed President Bill Clinton in the third season of American Crime Story.

He then had further television roles in A Murder at the End of the World (2023) and Monsieur Spade (2024).