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Ben Kingsley

Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, the son of Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), an actress and model, and Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, a medical doctor. Kingsley's father, an Ismaili Muslim, was born in Kenya of Indian Khoja Gujarati descent, as Kingsley's paternal grandfather was a spice trader who had moved from India to Zanzibar, where Kingsley's father lived until moving to England at the age of fourteen. Kingsley's mother, born out of wedlock, was "loath to speak of her background"; she was the daughter of an English East London garment worker mother and a father who was believed by the family to have been a Russian or German Jew.

Kingsley grew up in Pendlebury, Salford, where he studied at University of Salford. He then moved to Lancashire, where he studied at Pendleton College, which later became home to the Ben Kingsley Theatre. Kingsley began his acting career on the stage at Manchester Grammar School, alongside Robert Powell, but made a transition to film roles early on. Despite this focus on film, he continued to act on the stage, playing Mosca in Peter Hall's 1977 production of Ben Jonson's Volpone for the Royal National Theatre, and in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was at this time in his life that he changed his name from Krishna Bhanji to Ben Kingsley, fearing that a foreign name would hamper his career. Kingsley had four children as of the summer of 2007: Thomas Bhanji and artist Jasmin Bhanji by actress Angela Morant, and Edmund Kingsley and Ferdinand Kingsley, both of whom became actors, by theatrical director Alison Sutcliffe. In 2005 he divorced German-born Alexandra Christmann, after pictures of her kissing another lover surfaced on the internet. He currently lives in Spelsbury, England, where he has lived for over ten years.

On September 3, 2007, Kingsley married Daniela Barbosa de Carneiro, a Brazilian actress, in North Leigh, Oxfordshire.

According to Quakernet.org, Kingsley is a member of the Religious Society of Friends.