Ben Daniels (born June 10, 1964) is a British actor from England who has won a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award.
Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, the blond-haired and blue-eyed Daniels trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art for three years. Since then, he has appeared in many UK television dramas such as The Lost Language of Cranes (1991), Soldier Soldier (1991–1997), A Touch of Frost (1992–present), Outside Edge (1994), Cutting It (2002–2005) (as the philanderer Finn Bevan), and The Virgin Queen (2005). He played the role of Mercutio in the 1994 TV production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and the part of Jonathan in the 1997 Emmy-nominated TV film, David. In Ian Fleming: Bondmaker (2005), Daniel performed as the famous English author and journalist Ian Fleming. Most recently, he appeared in the BBC television mini-series The State Within (2006).
Daniels may be best known to American audiences for his portrayal of Tony in the 1996 gay film Beautiful Thing, written by Jonathan Harvey and based on his play of the same name. In an independent film directed by Lavinia Currier titled Passion in the Desert (1997), which was based on a short story by novelist Honoré de Balzac, Daniels, in perhaps one of the few films where he has the lead role, portrayed a French soldier named Augustin Robert. His character becomes lost in the desert during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and develops a strange bond with a leopard he meets. Passion in the Desert, which was nominated for a Golden Seashell award, also featured renowned French actor Michel Piccoli and was filmed in Jordan and in Utah, USA.
Daniels has also starred in other feature films such as Michael Winterbottom’s I Want You (1998); Madeline (1998), in which he was cast as the somewhat sinister British tutor Leopold; Conspiracy (2001), where he took on the serious role of State Secretary Dr. Joseph Buhler in a dramatization of the Wannsee Conference at which the Final Solution was endorsed; and Doom (2005), loosely based on the computer game of the same name.
Very active in the theatre scene, Daniels has co-starred alongside Juliette Binoche in the stage play Naked in London. His theatre work credits include plays such as Sam Shepard's The God of Hell, Iphigenia at Aulis, Pride and Prejudice, Tales From Hollywood, Three Sisters, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and The Wild Duck. He won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 25th Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards in 2001 for his performance in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons at the Cottesloe and Lyttelton theatres, which are both located within the Royal National Theatre in London. He was first nominated for this award earlier in his career, in 1991, for his performance as Richard Loeb, a real-life murderer of a 14-year-old boy, in another stage play titled Never the Sinner at the London Playhouse Theatre, but lost to David Bradley. Other awards Daniels has been nominated for include the Evening Standard Award, an honor presented for outstanding achievements in the London Theatre (in 1994); and an award for Best Actor at the M.E.N. Theatre Awards for Martin Yesterday (1998).
Daniels is openly gay and currently resides in South London, England.
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