Clive Owen

Clive Owen is an Academy Award -nominated, and Golden Globe- and BAFTA-award winning English actor, now a regular performer in Hollywood and independent American films.

Shoot'em Up

The fourth of five brothers, Owen was born in October 3, 1964 in Coventry, West Midlands, England, the son of Pamela 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 nineteen, the two have remained estranged. Raised by his mother and step-father, a railway ticket clerk, 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 RADA in 1987 with a class that included Ralph Fiennes and Jane Horrocks. After graduation, he won a position at the Young Vic, performing in several William Shakespeare plays. In an incident he later described as "very schmaltzy," he met his future wife when the two performed the leads in Romeo and Juliet.

Initially, Owen carved out a career in television: in 1988 Owen starred as Gideon Sarn in a BBC television 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.

Cilve Owen with his Wife

He won critical acclaim for his performances in a 1991 Stephen Poliakoff film called Close My Eyes, about a brother and sister who embark on an incestuous love affair. Due to personal conflicts with the press, Owen decided not to appear in television programmes for a while. However, he subsequently appeared in The Magician, Class Of '61, Century, Nobody's Children, An Evening With Gary Lineker, Doomsday Gun, Return Of The Native, The Turnaround 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 in 1998. 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 for a decade.

In the Movie Shoot'em Up

He then starred in The Echo, a BBC1 drama. He also 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 which he played DCI Ross Tanner. 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 The 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 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 and Ryan Phillippe. He has also appeared in The Bourne Identity with American actor Matt Damon. In 2003, he teamed up with Hodges again to make I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. He also starred in Beyond Borders and took on the title role in King Arthur. He took horse-riding lessons for the latter role.

Owen appeared in the West End and Broadway hit play Closer, by Patrick Marber, which again became a film, and was released in 2005. It is interesting to note that he played "Dan" in the play, but was "Larry" the dermatologist in the film version. His blistering, darkly comic portrayal of Larry in the film version earned him a lot of recognition 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.

SIN CITY

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 rumored 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 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. 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 2006, Owen starred in the highly acclaimed Children of Men. He received widespread praise for his role as the former political activist-turned-reluctant hero Theo Faron. The film was nominated for various awards including an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; Owen worked on the screenplay, although he was uncredited. 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.

DERAILED

In 2007, Owen appeared in the Christmas special of the Ricky Gervais show Extras, as revealed in the video pod cast teaser. He also uttered the immortal phrase "Fuck off, I'm Clive Owen, That's mental" when presented with a woman who he was supposed to have slept with in a film.

Owen lives in London and Wrabness, North Essex, with his wife Sarah-Jane Fenton and their two daughters, Hannah and Eve.

In November 2006, he became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema in Harwich, England and launched an appeal for funds to repair deteriorating elements of the fabric.

FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR

1988 Vroom

1989 Precious Bane

1990 Chancer

1990 Lorna Doone

1991 Close My Eyes

1993 Class of '61

1993 Century

1993 The Magician

1994 The Return of the Native

1994 Doomsday Gun

1994 An Evening with Gary Lineker

1994 Nobody's Children

1994 The Turnaround

1995 Bad Boy Blues

1996 Privateer 2: The Darkening

1996 The Rich Man's Wife

1996 Sharman

1997 Croupier

1997 Bent

1998 The Echo

1999 Split Second

1999 Second Sight DCI Ross Tanner

2000 Greenfingers

2000 Second Sight: Kingdom of the Blind

2000 Second Sight: Parasomnia

2000 Second Sight: Hide and Seek

2001 The Hire

2001 Gosford Park

2001 Walk On By

2002 The Bourne Identity

2003 Beyond Borders

2003 I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

2004 Closer

2004 King Arthur

2005 Derailed

2005 Sin City

2006 Children of Men

2006 Inside Man

2006 The Pink Panther

2007 Elizabeth: The Golden Age

2007 Shoot 'em Up

Filming

2008 The International

Pre-production

2008 The Boys Are Back in Town

2009 Duplicity

2009 Sin City 2