Ben Whishaw Trivia: 25 interesting facts about the actor!

Ben Whishaw is an English actor. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about him!

1.His full name is Benjamin John “Ben” Whishaw.

2. He was born on 14 October 1980.

3. Ben Whishaw was born in Clifton, Bedfordshire, and was brought up there and in Langford, the son of Linda, who works in cosmetics, and Jose Whishaw, who works in information technology.

4. His father is of French, German and Russian descent, and his mother is of English background.

5. He has a fraternal twin, James.

6. “Whishaw” is not the family’s original surname.

7. He was a member of the Bancroft Players Youth Theatre at Hitchin’s Queen Mother Theatre.

8. He attended Henlow Middle School and then Samuel Whitbread Community College in Shefford where he first rose to prominence during collaborations with their offshoot theatre company, Big Spirit.

9. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2003.

10. Ben Whishaw was involved in many productions with Big Spirit, perhaps most notably 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, a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp.

11. It was adapted into a physical theatre piece by the group and taken to the 1995 Edinburgh Festival, where it garnered five-star reviews and great critical acclaim.

12. As the lead in Trevor Nunn’s 2004 production of Hamlet at the Old Vic, he received highly favourable reviews and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor and the Ian Charleson Award.

13. The role was shared with Al Weaver in an unusual arrangement that saw Whishaw playing 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.

14. It was Whishaw, however, who featured most prominently in the marketing materials and in the majority of reviews.

15.  He was named “Most Promising Newcomer” at the 2001 British Independent Film Awards for My Brother.

16. In 2005 he was nominated as best actor in four award ceremonies for his portrayal of Hamlet.

17. In Perfume, Whishaw played Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a perfume maker whose craft turns deadly. The film was released in Germany in September 2006 and in US theaters in December 2006.

18. In 2012, Whishaw appeared as Richard II in the television film Richard II, a part of the BBC Two series The Hollow Crown, for which he received the British Academy Television Award for Leading Actor.

19. Ben Whishaw appeared in the 23rd James Bond film, Skyfall, in the role of Q.

20. He was nominated for a WhatsOnStage Award for Best Actor[16] for both roles.

21. In the summer of 2015 he appeared as Dionysos in Euripides’ tragedy Bakkhai at the Almeida Theatre in London.

22. In 2015, Whishaw co-starred in The Lobster, a romantic science fiction drama from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos.

23. For several years, Whishaw refused to answer questions about his personal life, saying: “For me, it’s important to keep a level of anonymity. As an actor, your job is to persuade people that you’re someone else. So if you’re constantly telling people about yourself, I think you’re shooting yourself in the foot.”

24. Ben Whishaw entered into a civil partnership with Australian composer Mark Bradshaw in August 2012.

25. In 2014, he publicly discussed his coming out as a gay man, saying that it was a tense experience for him but “everyone was surprisingly lovely”