Clive Owen
Clive Owen (born 3 October 1964) is an English actor. 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). 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).
For Clive Owen, the farmer and star of Our Yorkshire Farm, see Amanda Owen.
Clive Owen
Actor
1987–present
2
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). 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).
Early life[edit]
Clive Owen was born on 3 October 1964 in Keresley, Coventry (then in Warwickshire),[1] the fourth of five sons born to Pamela (née 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.[2][3] He has described his childhood as "rough".[2]
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.[4] After graduation, he worked at the Young Vic, performing in several Shakespearean plays.[5]
Career[edit]
Early career[edit]
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 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.
Personal life[edit]
Owen met his wife, Sarah-Jane Fenton, in 1988, when they were both taking part in a production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet at the Young Vic Theatre in London. They began dating shortly after and married in March 1995.
Owen became patron of the Electric Palace Cinema in Harwich, Essex, and launched an appeal for funds to repair deteriorating elements of the historic building.[20][21][22]
Owen is a supporter of Liverpool FC[23] and narrated the fly on the wall documentary series Being: Liverpool.[24]