Ben Whishaw facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ben Whishaw
Whishaw in 2018
Born	Benjamin John Whishaw (1980-10-14) 14 October 1980 (age 44) Clifton, Bedfordshire, England
Alma mater	Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1999–present
Partner(s)	Mark Bradshaw (2012–2022)

Benjamin John Whishaw (born 14 October 1980) is an English actor. He has received various accolades in his career, including three British Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe in addition to nominations for a Laurence Olivier Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

He won a British Independent Film Award for his performance in My Brother Tom (2001). A few years later, he was nominated for an Olivier Award for his portrayal of the title role in a 2004 production of the play Hamlet.

This was followed by television roles in Nathan Barley (2005), Criminal Justice (2008) and The Hour (2011–12); and film roles in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), I'm Not There (2007), Brideshead Revisited (2008), and Bright Star (2009). For Criminal Justice, Whishaw received his first BAFTA Award nomination.

In 2012, Whishaw played the title role in a BBC Two adaptation of Richard II, for which he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor. The same year, he appeared as Q in the James Bond film Skyfall (2012), going on to reprise the role in Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021). He has voiced Paddington Bear in several projects since Paddington (2014). His other film roles in the 2010s include Cloud Atlas (2012), The Lobster (2015), Suffragette (2015), The Danish Girl (2015), and Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

Whishaw received a third BAFTA Award nomination for the leading role in London Spy (2015) and for his portrayal of Norman Scott in the miniseries A Very English Scandal (2018), won another BAFTA, a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor. In 2020, he had a leading role in the fourth season of the black comedy drama Fargo. In 2022, he starred in the BBC medical drama series This Is Going to Hurt, and in 2023 led the short film Good Boy.

Early life

Whishaw was born on 14 October 1980 in Clifton, Bedfordshire, and was brought up there and in neighbouring Langford. He is the son of Linda (née Hope), who works in cosmetics, and Jose Whishaw who works in sports with young people. He has a fraternal twin, James.

His mother is of English ancestry, while his father is of French, German and Russian descent. The family's original surname was not Whishaw but Stellmacher, a German occupational name for a wheelwright. Whishaw's paternal grandfather, born Jean Vladimir Stellmacher and living in Kassel, Germany changed his name to John Victor Whishaw after World War II during which he served as a British spy in the German army. He was born in Istanbul in 1922 to a Russian mother and German father.

Whishaw was a member of the Bancroft Players Youth Theatre, at Hitchin's Queen Mother Theatre. He attended Henlow Middle School and then Samuel Whitbread Community College in Clifton. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2003.

Career

Whishaw was involved in many productions with Big Spirit Youth Theatre, including If This Is a Man (also performed as The Drowned & The Saved), a piece devised by the company based on the book of the same name by Primo Levi, an Italian chemist, writer and survivor as a young man of Auschwitz concentration camp. It was adapted as a physical theatre piece by the group and taken to the 1995 Edinburgh Festival, where it garnered five-star reviews and great critical acclaim.

Whishaw with Judi Dench in Peter and Alice, at the Noël Coward Theatre in 2013

As the lead in Trevor Nunn's 2004 production of Hamlet at the Old Vic, Whishaw received highly favourable reviews, was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor and received third prize at the Ian Charleson Awards. The role was shared with Al Weaver in an unusual arrangement. Whishaw played all nights except for Mondays and matinées. Nunn is reported to have made this arrangement due to the youth of the two actors playing the lead, to relieve some of the pressure on each.

His film and television credits include Layer Cake and Chris Morris's 2005 sitcom Nathan Barley, in which he played a character called Pingu. He was named "Most Promising Newcomer" at the 2001 British Independent Film Awards for My Brother Tom. In 2005 he was nominated as best actor in four award programs for his portrayal of Hamlet. He also played Keith Richards in the Brian Jones biopic. In the spring of 2005, Whishaw received much attention for his role in the world premiere of Philip Ridley's stage play Mercury Fur.

In the film Perfume (2006), Whishaw played Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a perfume maker whose craft turns deadly. The film was released in Germany in September 2006 and in the United States in December 2006. In the same year, Whishaw worked on Paweł Pawlikowski's abandoned The Restraint of Beasts.

Whishaw appeared as one of the Bob Dylan reincarnations in the film I'm Not There in 2007, in the BBC's series Criminal Justice in 2008, in a new film adaptation of Brideshead Revisited, and in a stage adaptation of The Idiot at the National Theatre called ...some trace of her.

At the end of 2009 he starred in Cock, a new play by Mike Bartlett at the Royal Court Theatre, about a gay man who falls in love with a woman. In 2009 he also starred as the poet John Keats in the film Bright Star. In February 2010, Whishaw made a successful off-Broadway debut at MCC Theater in the American premiere of the awarding-winning play The Pride by Alexi Kaye Campbell. He played Ariel in Julie Taymor's 2010 film adaptation of The Tempest, and was featured in The Hour (2011), a BBC Two drama series.

In 2012 Whishaw appeared as Richard II in the television film Richard II, a part of the BBC Two series The Hollow Crown. He received the British Academy Television Award for Leading Actor. Also in 2012, he appeared as part of the ensemble cast of the science-fiction drama film Cloud Atlas, adapted from the novel of the same name by David Mitchell.

Whishaw appeared in the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, in the role of Q. He portrayed a younger Q than portrayed in previous films; Peter Burton and Desmond Llewelyn both received the role when they were in their forties, while Llewelyn and John Cleese played the role into their eighties and sixties, respectively. In addition, he was teamed a fourth time with Daniel Craig after they starred in the films The Trench, Enduring Love, and Layer Cake.

In spring 2013, Whishaw starred on stage alongside Judi Dench in the world premiere of Peter and Alice, a new play by John Logan, inspired by the lives of Alice Liddell and Peter Llewelyn Davies. From October 2013 to February 2014, Whishaw appeared on stage in the revival of Jez Butterworth's play Mojo, also starring Rupert Grint, Brendan Coyle, Daniel Mays and Colin Morgan. He was nominated for a WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor for both roles. In the summer of 2015 he appeared as Dionysos in Euripides' tragedy Bakkhai at the Almeida Theatre in London.

Whishaw's Paddington Bear designed statue—"Special Delivery"—in Covent Garden, London, auctioned to raise funds for the NSPCC

In 2014, Whishaw starred in the independent film Lilting, as well as voicing Paddington Bear in the film Paddington. In 2015, Whishaw co-starred in The Lobster, a romantic science fiction drama from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos; appeared in Suffragette, a story of the early feminist movement written by Abi Morgan and also starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep and his The Hour co-star, Romola Garai; reprised his role of Q in Spectre, the 24th Bond film; and played author Herman Melville in Ron Howard's In the Heart of the Sea.

In 2017, Whishaw reprised his role as Paddington Bear in Paddington 2. In 2018, he portrayed Norman Scott in the BBC One miniseries A Very English Scandal, opposite Hugh Grant as parliamentarian Jeremy Thorpe, and also starred as Michael Banks in Mary Poppins Returns. In 2020, Whishaw had a lead role in the fourth season of the critically acclaimed FX black comedy crime drama Fargo, portraying Patrick "Rabbi" Milligan, alongside Chris Rock, Jason Schwartzman, Jessie Buckley and Jack Huston.

Whishaw reprised his role of Q in No Time to Die (2021), the 25th James Bond film. As of 2022, Whishaw stars in the BBC and AMC medical drama This Is Going to Hurt, an adaptation of comedian Adam Kay's memoir recalling his time in 2006 as a junior NHS doctor. Whishaw is also credited as an executive producer. Whishaw appeared in Sarah Polley's Women Talking, the film adaptation of Miriam Toews' novel of the same name, for which he was nominated for several acting awards for his performance. In 2023, he appeared in Passages for which he received a nomination for Best Supporting Performance at the 39th Film Independent Spirit Awards.

He portrays Russian writer and ultranationalist Eduard Limonov in Limonov: The Ballad, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov.

Personal life

In August 2012, Whishaw entered into a civil partnership with Australian composer Mark Bradshaw, whom he had met in 2009. In 2014, he publicly discussed his coming out, saying that it was a tense experience for him but "everyone was surprisingly lovely". He split from Bradshaw in 2022.

Acting credits

Film

Key

Denotes films that have not yet been released

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999	Trench, TheThe Trench	Pte. James Deamis
	The Escort	Jay
2001	Baby	Little Joe	Short film
	My Brother Tom	Tom
2002	Spiritual Rampage		Short film
2003	Ready When You Are Mr. McGill	Bruno
	... Cruise, TheThe ... Cruise	Daniel
2004	77 Beds	Ishmael	Short film
	Enduring Love	Spud
	Layer Cake	Sidney
2006	Perfume: The Story of a Murderer	Jean-Baptiste Grenouille
2007	I'm Not There	Arthur
2008	Brideshead Revisited	Sebastian Flyte
2009	The International	Rene Antall
	Bright Star	John Keats
	Love Hate	Tom	Short film
2010	Tempest, TheThe Tempest	Ariel
2011	The Prodigies	Gil Yepes	Irish and UK dub
2012	Skyfall	Q
	Cloud Atlas	Cabin Boy / Robert Frobisher / Store Clerk / Georgette / Tribesman
2013	Beat	Unknown	Short film
	The Zero Theorem	Doctor 3
	Teenage	British Boy (voice)	Documentary
	Days and Nights	Eric
2014	Lilting	Richard
	Paddington	Paddington Bear	Voice and Facial Motion Capture
2015	The Muse	Edward Dunstan	Short film
	The Lobster	Limping Man
	Unity	Narrator (voice)	Documentary
	Suffragette	Sonny
	The Danish Girl	Henrik
	Spectre	Q
	In the Heart of the Sea	Herman Melville
2016	A Hologram for the King	Dave
2017	Paddington 2	Paddington Bear	Voice
	Family Happiness		Short film
2018	National Theatre Live: Julius Caesar	Brutus
	Palo Santo	Palo Santo Hologram	Short film
	Mary Poppins Returns	Michael Banks
2019	Little Joe	Chris
	The Personal History of David Copperfield	Uriah Heep
2020	Surge	Joseph
2021	No Time to Die	Q
2022	Women Talking	August Epp
2023	Bad Behaviour	Elon Bello
	Passages	Martin
	Good Boy	Danny	Short film
2024	Limonov: The Ballad	Eduard Limonov
	Paddington in Peru	Paddington Bear	Voice
2025	Peter Hujar's Day	Peter Hujar	Completed

Television

Key

Denotes television series that have not yet been released

Theatre

Radio

Music Videos

Real- Years and Years (2014).

Awards and nominations

See also

• List of British actors
• List of Royal National Theatre Company actors
• List of Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alumni