| Ben Daniels | |
| Birth Date: | 10 June 1964 |
| Birth Place: | Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England |
| Occupation: | Actor |
| Alma Mater: | London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art |
| Years Active: | 1985–present |
| Partner: | Ian Gelder (1993–2024; his death) |
Ben Daniels (born 10 June 1964) is an English actor. Initially a stage actor, Daniels was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for Never the Sinner (1991), the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for 900 Oneonta (1994), Best Actor in the M.E.N. Theatre Awards for Martin Yesterday (1998), and won the 2001 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons.
In 2008, Daniels made his Broadway début in a revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, for which he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. Daniels has also appeared on popular television series including Cutting It (2002–04), The Virgin Queen (2005), (2009–11), The Paradise (2013), House of Cards (2013–14), and The Exorcist (2016–17).
On 1 April 2018 he appeared in the NBC live televised concert rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar as Pontius Pilate.[1] Daniels played Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon in the third season of Netflix series The Crown.[2] Daniels starred in the role of Walter Sampson in the Netflix superhero series, Jupiter's Legacy.[3]
In 2023 he played the character of General Bel Riose in the Apple TV+ science fiction series Foundation.[4]
Daniels was born on 10 June 1964 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.[5] His father was an engineer at Rolls-Royce and later a grocer, while his mother owned a children's clothes shop. He has recalled: "I was quite a shy child, but quite disruptive as well. I was very sneaky and underhanded."
Daniels was educated at Manor Park School, a state comprehensive school in Nuneaton, near Coventry, in Warwickshire (since closed).[6] According to Daniels, drama lessons at O-levels gave him a voice, and when he attended sixth form studies at Stratford College between 1980 and 1982, doing A-levels in theatre studies and English literature, he attended Royal Shakespeare Company performances. A fellow student recalled that Daniels, whom he knew as Dave, "was very serious about his work, and struck me as incredibly intelligent... you got the sense his mind was working; the cogs were ticking over". Daniels subsequently trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) for three years.[5]
One of Daniels' earliest roles was as Justin Hayward, the lead singer of the Moody Blues, as a teenager in two of the band's music videos, "Your Wildest Dreams" (1986) and "I Know You're Out There Somewhere" (1988). In 1992, he made an appearance in the infamous plane crash episode "Cascade" of the television show Casualty, playing the co-pilot of the doomed plane. He has taken on parts in many British television dramas, such as Robin in The Lost Language of Cranes (1991), the Biblical character Jonathan in the 1997 Emmy-nominated TV film David, the philandering Finn Bevan in Cutting It (2002–2005), and Nicholas Brocklehurst in the BBC television miniseries The State Within (2006). The latter role was notable for an unexpected same-sex kiss between Daniels' character and another person. In 2008 he appeared in Lark Rise to Candleford, a BBC production based on three semi-autobiographical novels about the English countryside written by Flora Thompson.
Daniels has also played a number of real-life characters, such as German State Secretary Dr. Josef Bühler in Conspiracy, a 2001 dramatisation of the Wannsee Conference at which the Final Solution was endorsed. He also played the author and journalist Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, in Ian Fleming: Bondmaker (2005), as well as Sir Francis Walsingham in The Virgin Queen (2005) and English writer Saki in Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? (2007). In addition, he has made guest appearances in a number of British TV drama series, including Soldier Soldier (1992), A Touch of Frost (1992), Outside Edge (1994), Spooks (2005), and Merlin (2011). In 2017, Daniels made a guest appearance in a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons as a priest.
Daniels may be most recognisable to American audiences for appearing in the 1996 film Beautiful Thing. Daniels portrayed Tony, boyfriend of Sandra, the protagonist Jamie's mother. In an independent film directed by Lavinia Currier titled Passion in the Desert (1997), Daniels played a French soldier named Augustin Robert.[7] The film was nominated for a Golden Seashell award. Other feature films that Daniels has starred in are The Bridge (1992), I Want You (1998), Madeline (1998), and Doom (2005). He was offered roles in the 2000 releases The Patriot and Vertical Limit, but turned them down and stated that "the money was good, but it wasn't for me". Daniels had a brief appearance as General Antoc Merrick in the Star Wars film .
Daniels has said that he loves acting on stage because "it's tough and keeps you on your toes as an actor". He appeared in All's Well That Ends Well and As You Like It (1999–2000), and played Mercutio in a 1994 TV adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Other theatre credits include Waiting for Godot (1994) and 900 Oneonta (1994), which earned him a nomination for Best Actor at the Evening Standard Awards.[5] He also acted in Martin Yesterday (1998), for which he was nominated as Best Actor in the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards,[5] Naked (1998), Tales From Hollywood (2001), Three Sisters (2003), Iphigenia at Aulis (2004), The God of Hell (2005), and The Wild Duck (2005–2006). In 2006, Daniels appeared in Thérèse Raquin as Laurent, for which a reviewer labelled his performance "riveting". On 1 April 2018, Daniels appeared as Pontius Pilate in the NBC live musical, Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert!.
Daniels won the Best Supporting Actor award at the Whatsonstage.com Theatregoers' Choice Theatre Awards and the 25th Laurence Olivier Awards in 2001 for his performance in the Arthur Miller play All My Sons. He was first nominated for the latter award earlier in his career, in 1991, for his performance as murderer Richard Loeb in the play Never the Sinner at the Playhouse Theatre. In 2008, Daniels fulfilled a lifetime ambition when he made his Broadway début, headlining as the Vicomte de Valmont in a revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.[8] The show opened on 1 May 2008. Daniels was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his role.
Daniels played a recurring role in the Netflix series House of Cards (2013-2014) as prominent photographer Adam Galloway. He also played the role of lawyer Rory Murray in the second season of Passenger List, a fictional podcast produced by Radiotopia. He portrays thespian vampire Santiago on the series Interview with the Vampire.
Daniels was in a relationship with actor Ian Gelder from 1993 until the latter's death in May 2024.[9] [10] They met during the production of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane. The couple resided in South London. Daniels was already sure of his orientation in his teens (he once remarked: "Out? I've never been in") although he did not discuss the matter with his parents because they did not have a very close emotional relationship. He was "cautious about mentioning it when I left drama school, because AIDS was terrifying everyone and there was a huge homophobic backlash". He decided to reveal his homosexuality at the age of 24, while appearing in an all-star benefit performance of Martin Sherman's Bent.
Daniels said in an interview in 2001: "Homophobia is still shockingly prevalent in film and TV. I know I've lost work because of being gay, and it is always an issue. Even on a serious BBC Two drama, there will be some suit in some office going, "Hmmm, isn't he a poof?" I don't consider myself politically gay, but whenever I catch a whiff of that now, I'm on it like a ton of bricks." In 2007, Daniels was ranked number 79 in the annual Pink List of 100 influential gay and lesbian people in Britain published by The Independent on Sunday, down from number 47 in 2006.
In his spare time, he is an amateur painter and a practitioner of Ashtanga yoga. From a young age to his early forties, Daniels suffered from sleep paralysis.[11]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | Wish You Were Here | Policeman | ||
| The Fourth Protocol | Uncredited bit part | |||
| 1991 | The Lost Language of Cranes | Robin | ||
| 1992 | The Bridge | Rogers | ||
| 1993 | Rwendo | Marti | Short film | |
| 1995 | Beautiful Thing | Tony | ||
| 1997 | Passion in the Desert | Augustin Robert | ||
| 1998 | I Want You | DJ Bob | ||
| Madeline | Leopold | |||
| 1999 | Fanny and Elvis | Andrew | ||
| 2000 | Britannic | Townsend | ||
| 2001 | Married / Unmarried | Danny | ||
| Conspiracy | Dr. Josef Bühler | |||
| 2002 | Fogbound | Leo | ||
| 2005 | Doom | Eric "Goat" Fantom | ||
| 2013 | Jack the Giant Slayer | Fumm | ||
| 2014 | Locke | Gareth | ||
| Luna | Grant | Filmed in 2007 | ||
| 2016 | The Exception | Colonel Sigurd von Ilsemann | Adaptation of Alan Judd's 2003 novel, The Kaiser's Last Kiss | |
| General Antoc Merrick | ||||
| 2019 | Captive State | Daniel | ||
| 2021 | Benediction | W. H. R. Rivers | ||
| 2024 | Argylle | Bartender | Cameo[12] |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1987 | One By One | Student | Episode: "The Elephant and the Kangaroo" |
| 1988 | The Modern World: Ten Great Writers | Hans Castorp | Episode: "Thomas Mann" |
| Wall of Tyranny | Streimer | ||
| Scene | Adrian | Episode: "The Crossing" | |
| 1989 | The Paradise Club | DC Webster | Episodes: "Family Favours" and "Unfrocked in Babylon" |
| Capital City | Colin de Seincourt | Episode: "Max in Trouble" | |
| 1990 | Drop the Dead Donkey | Jack Davenport | Episode: "Old Father Time" |
| The Fabulous Singlettes | Brian | ||
| 1992 | Casualty | First Officer Graham Marda | Episode: "Cascade" |
| Soldier Soldier | Capt. Andy Wright | Episode: "The Last Post" | |
| A Touch of Frost | Roger Massie | Episode: "Conclusions" | |
| 1993 | The Inspector Alleyn Mysteries | Norman Cubitt | Episode: "Death at the Bar" |
| 1994 | Romeo and Juliet | Mercutio | |
| Outside Edge | Alex Harrington | 5 episodes | |
| W.S.H. | Kleinman | ||
| 1996 | Truth or Dare | Ben | |
| 1997 | David | Jonathan | |
| 1998 | Silent Witness | Owen Johnson | Episode: "Brothers in Arms" |
| 1999 | Aristocrats | Lord Kildare | |
| 2000 | Britannic | Townsend | |
| 2002–2004 | Cutting It | Finn Bevan | Series 1–3 |
| 2003 | Real Men | DI Matthew Fenton | |
| 2004 | Agatha Christie's Marple | Alfred Crackenthorpe | Episode: "4.50 to Paddington" |
| 2005 | Ian Fleming | ||
| Spooks | Oleg Korsakov | Episode: "The Russian" | |
| The Virgin Queen | Francis Walsingham | ||
| 2006 | The State Within | Nicholas Brocklehurst | |
| 2007 | Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? | Saki | |
| 2008 | Lark Rise to Candleford | Rushton | 1 episode |
| The Passion | Caiaphas | ||
| 2009–2011 | James Steel | Series 1 to 4 | |
| 2009 | The Last Days of Lehman Brothers | John Thain | |
| 2011 | Women in Love | Will Brangwen | |
| Moving On | John Murphy | Episode: "The Poetry of Silence" | |
| Merlin | Tristan | "Sword in the Stone", Parts 1 and 2. Acted alongside Miranda Raison who played his love interest, Isolde. | |
| 2013–2014 | House of Cards | Adam Galloway | 7 episodes |
| 2013 | The Wipers Times | Lt. Colonel Howfield | |
| The Paradise | Tom Weston | 8 episodes | |
| 2014 | Kids Who Kill | Narrator | TV documentary |
| Jamaica Inn | Francis Davey | ||
| 2015 | Virtuoso | Emperor Joseph II | TV Pilot |
| Casanova | François-Joachim de Bernis | TV Pilot | |
| Flesh and Bone | Paul Grayson | 8 episodes | |
| 2016 | The Hollow Crown | Duke of Buckingham | Episodes: "Henry VI, Part Two" & "Richard III" |
| 2016–2017 | The Exorcist | Father Marcus Keane | Nominated – Fangoria Chainsaw Award for Best TV Supporting Actor (2017)[13] [14] Won – Cine Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama Series (2017)[15] [16] |
| 2017 | The Simpsons | Irish Priest | Voice role (as Ben P. Soop Daniels); Segment: "Exor-sis" from "Treehouse of Horror XXVIII"[17] |
| 2019 | The Crown | Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon | Main role (Season 3) 8 episodes Won – Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, 26th Screen Actors Guild Awards |
| 2021 | Jupiter's Legacy | Walter Sampson | Main cast |
| 2023 | Foundation | Bel Riose[18] | Season 2 |
| 2024 | Interview with the Vampire[19] | Santiago | Season 2 |
| [20] | Círdan the Shipwright | Season 2 |
| width=19% | Year(s) of appearance | width=27% | Performance | width=27% | Role | width=27% | Awards and nominations |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | The Brontës of Haworth by Alan Ayckbourn Scarborough, North Yorkshire | James Feather | |||||
| Family Circles (1970) by Alan Ayckbourn Scarborough, North Yorkshire | James | ||||||
| 1986 | The Winter's Tale (1623) by William ShakespeareBirmingham Repertory Theatre | Florizel | |||||
| Something Wicked This Way Comes based on the 1962 novel by Ray BradburyEveryman Theatre, Liverpool | William Holloway | ||||||
| The Hypochondriac Leicester | Cleante | ||||||
| Electra (probably after 413 BC) by Euripides Leicester | Pylades | ||||||
| 1987 | Way Out of OrderHaymarket, Leicester | Sean | |||||
| All's Well That Ends Well (1601–1608) by William Shakespeare Leicester | Bertram | ||||||
| 1988 | The Rain GatheringTraverse Theatre, Edinburgh | ||||||
| The Tutor (1774) by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz Old Vic, London | Bollwerk | ||||||
| 1989 | Bent (1979) by Martin ShermanOne-night benefit for Stonewall at Adelphi Theatre, London | Wolf | |||||
| 1991 | Never the Sinner by John Logan Playhouse Theatre, London | Richard Loeb |
| ||||
| Pride and Prejudice based on Jane Austen's 1813 book Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester | George Wickham | ||||||
| 1993 | Entertaining Mr Sloane (1964) by Joe Orton Greenwich Theatre, London | Sloane | |||||
| Cracks The King's Head Theatre, London | Gideon | ||||||
| 1994 | Waiting for Godot (1948–1949) by Samuel Beckett Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London | Lucky | |||||
| 1994, 1999 | 900 Oneonta by David Beaird Old Vic and Ambassadors Theatre, London; Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, Los Angeles | Tiger |
| ||||
| 1998 | Martin Yesterday Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester | Matt |
| ||||
| Naked Almeida Theatre and Playhouse Theatre, London | Franco | ||||||
| 1999–2000 | As You Like It (1599 or 1600) by William Shakespeare Crucible Theatre, Sheffield; and Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London | Orlando | |||||
| 2001 | All My Sons (1947) by Arthur Miller Cottesloe and Lyttelton Theatres, Royal National Theatre, London | Chris Keller |
| ||||
| Tales from Hollywood[21] (1984) by Christopher Hampton Donmar Warehouse, London | Ödön von Horváth | ||||||
| 2003 | Three Sisters[22] (1900) by Anton Chekhov Lyttelton Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London | Lt. Col. Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin | |||||
| 2004 | Iphigenia at Aulis[23] (410 BC) by Euripides, translated by Don Taylor (1990) Lyttelton Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London | Agamemnon | |||||
| 2005 | The God of Hell[24] (2004?) by Sam Shepard Donmar Warehouse, London | Welch | |||||
| 2005–2006 | The Wild Duck[25] (1884) by Henrik Ibsen Donmar Warehouse, London | Gregers Werle | |||||
| 2006 | Thérèse Raquin[26] (1873) by Émile Zola, adapted by Nicholas Wright Lyttelton Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London | Laurent | |||||
| 2008 | Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons)[27] (first produced 1985) by Christopher Hampton American Airlines Theatre, New York City | Vicomte de Valmont |
| ||||
| 2011 | Luise Miller (1782–1784) by Friedrich Schiller Donmar Warehouse | The Chancellor | |||||
| 2011–2012 | Haunted Child by Joe PenhallRoyal Court Theatre, London | Douglas | |||||
| 2012 | Don't Dress For Dinner (1987) by Marc Camoletti American Airlines Theatre, New York City | Robert | |||||
| 2018 | Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert! (1970) by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice Marcy Avenue Armory, Williamsburg, Brooklyn | Pontius Pilate | NBC Live Musical
| ||||
| 2021 | The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer[29] (1985)Olivier Theatre, Royal National Theatre, London | Ned Weeks |
| ||||
| 2023 | Medea by Euripides[33] (431 BC)@SohoPlaceTheatre, London | Jason/Creon/Aegeus |
| Year | Award | Category | Work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Never the Sinner | |
| 1994 | Evening Standard Theatre Award | Best Actor | 900 Oneonta | |
| 1998 | MEN Theatre Award | Best Actor | Martin Yesterday | |
| 2000 | TMA Award | Best Supporting Actor | As You Like It | |
| 2001 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | All My Sons | |
| WhatsOnStage Award | Best Supporting Actor in a Play | |||
| 2008 | Tony Award | Best Actor in a Play | Les Liaisons Dangereuses | |
| Drama League Award | Distinguished Performance | |||
| Outer Critics Circle Award | Best Actor in a Play | |||
| Theatre World Award | ||||
| 2017 | Fangoria Chainsaw Award | Best TV Supporting Actor | The Exorcist | |
| 2019 | Grammy Award | Best Musical Theater Album | Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert | |
| 2020 | Screen Actors Guild Award | Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series | The Crown | |
| 2022 | Laurence Olivier Award | Best Actor | The Normal Heart | |
| Critics' Circle Theatre Award | Best Actor | |||
| WhatsOnStage Award | Best Performer in a Male Identifying Role in a Play | |||