Part of Nolan's Regulars featuring Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Christian Bale, and Anne Hathaway.
Rise to Fame
He directed and starred in Henry V at 28, earning Oscar nominations for both acting and directing. He'd already left the Royal Shakespeare Company to start his own theater troupe because the RSC felt too institutional. The Shakespeare films kept coming: Hamlet in 1996 (four hours, uncut), Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It. Whether you found them reverential or exhausting, he kept prestige Shakespeare alive in the multiplex for a decade when nobody else was bothering to try.
In the Spotlight
His Hercule Poirot franchise has crossed $686 million across three films, which is impressive for anything built around a Belgian detective with a spectacular mustache. The bigger story is Belfast, his semi-autobiographical Troubles drama, which won him Best Original Screenplay in 2022. It was his first Oscar win after eight nominations across seven different categories, a record. The next chapter includes a Devil Wears Prada sequel, a Cold War comedy with Ryan Reynolds, and a thriller with Jodie Comer. He's not coasting.
Side Notes
He grew up in Tiger's Bay, north Belfast, and fled to England at 9 when the Troubles made the neighborhood untenable. He learned a new accent to survive school in Reading. That pattern of adaptation has never left him: he read every Poirot novel and reportedly studied 27 Belgian accents before playing the character. He performed Hamlet for Queen Elizabeth II while still a RADA student. He was reportedly considered for young Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace before Ewan McGregor got the part, which probably saved him from a different kind of career entirely.