Kingsley Ben-Adir

Kingsley Ben-Adir is an award-winning British actor who began his career immediately after graduating from Guildhall School of Music and Dance in London theater, with roles in contemporary work and Shakespeare at The Old Vic, from 2011 to 2014. Ben-Adir began to shift to work in the movies and television, starting with an uncredited role in the box-office hit, World War Z (2013), and then in the British crime movie, Trespass Against Us (2016), starring Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson, Rory Kinnear, and Sean Harris, and which premiered at the Toronto film festival.

Ben-Adir was cast in a significant supporting role in director Guy Ritchie’s under-performing King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017), starring Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Jude Law, and Eric Bana, but earning only $148.7 million against $175 million costs for Warner Bros./Village Roadshow. Kingsley Ben-Adir then earned a supporting role in the more successful thriller from Lionsgate, The Commuter (2018), starring Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, and Sam Neill, grossing $120 million worldwide.

Ben-Adir’s breakthrough performance as an intense Malcolm X led an impressive ensemble in the Regina King-directed film adaptation of Kemp Powers’ play, One Night in Miami (2020), with Eli Goree, Aldis Hodge, and Leslie Odom Jr., premiering at the Venice film festival and garnering three Oscar nominations.

Ben-Adir played Basketball Ken opposite Ryan Gosling’s Ken in Greta Gerwig’s pop-culture phenomenon, Barbie (2023), starring Margot Robbie, America Ferrera, Rhea Perlman, Issa Rae, and Kate McKinnon, which earned eight Oscar nominations and grossed over ten times costs with an astounding $1.45 billion globally. Ben-Adir landed his first starring feature role-playing another iconic figure in Bob Marley: One Love (2024), co-written and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, with Lashana Lynch, James Norton, Sevana, and Daniel Melville Jr., and released by Paramount Pictures.