10 Hollywood Actors Names You Don't Really Know

Real Name: Krishna Bhanji

Far from what his stage name would suggest, Sexy Beast and Schindler’s List star Sir Ben Kingsley’s DNA is actually a melting pot of different cultural influences. Born in Yorkshire to an English mother of Russian Jewish descent and a Gujarati Indian father hailing from Kenya, he was christened Krishna Bhanji – a name with both Hindu and Muslim origins.

But non-English sounding names weren’t deemed a hindrance just in the American entertainment industry and Kingsley felt pressured to change his given name so it didn’t hamper his acting career. With the help of his father, he chose Ben (a reference to his dad’s childhood nickname Benji) and Kingsley after his spice trader paternal grandfather’s nickname King Cloves.

It worked and soon after the name change, a range of TV and theatrical parts started rolling in for Kingsley. It’s kind of ironic then that his first major film role was playing Gujarati Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s 1982 biopic for which he received widespread acclaim and an Academy Award for Best Actor.