Adrian Lester

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Adrian Lester , OBE (born August 14, 1968 in Birmingham ) is a British television and theater actor , who is best known for his Shakespeare performances and the BBC series Hustle .

biography

Private life

Lester was born to Jamaican immigrants Monica, a medical assistant, and Reginald, the director of a cleaning company in Birmingham. He gained his first acting experience at the Birmingham Youth Theater and then attended the Joseph Chamberlain VI Form College and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London . Lester lives in south east London with his wife, actress Lolita Chakrabarti , and their two daughters.

Career

On stage, Lester played in the Musical Company and the title role in Hamlet , for which he received an Olivier Award and the Carlton TV Theater Award , and in 1991 as Rosalind in As You Like It , for which he won the Time Out Award . In 2003 Lester took on the role of Henry V in the Shakespeare drama of the same name at the Royal National Theater . At the Novello Theater in London in 2010 Lester was seen alongside James Earl Jones and Phylicia Rashad in Tennessee Williams ' "Cat on a hot tin roof". He received the London Critics' Circle Theater Award 2012 for his performance in "Red Velvet" (Tricycle Theater London) . In the spring of 2013 he took the title role in " Othello " at the National Theater in London , where he acts alongside Rory Kinnear .

In addition to his work as a stage actor, Lester also took on smaller film roles, such as in 1998 in the drama With all might at the side of John Travolta , which resulted in a nomination for "Most Promising Actor" at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards , or in 2002 in the comedy Maybe Baby with Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson . In the same year Lester took on the role of Dumaine in Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare film Lost Love Labor . Although the film itself received little attention, Lester received the British Independent Film Award for its performance . In the Hollywood film The Day After Tomorrow , Lester also appeared in a supporting role when he and two other researchers toast with a "twelve-year-old scotch " before all three of them freeze to death. Lester also appeared as Ellis in the sitcom Girlfriends from 2002 to 2003 . There he played a movie star who dates Tracee Ellis Ross's character Joan .

His best-known television role is that of con artist Mickey Bricks in the BBC series Hustle , in which he initially appeared from 2004 to 2006. After the third season, Lester announced his exit and was replaced by Ashley Walters before returning to the Hustle team for the fifth season . In 2005, Lester had a major guest role on the Channel 4 crime series The Ghost Squad . He also recorded some scenes for the film Spider-Man 3 in 2007 , which, although still seen in the teaser, were cut out of the finished film. That same year, an episode of the children 's series Empire's Children on Channel 4 was about a trip to the United Kingdom by his grandfather, Kenneth Nathaniel Lester . Adrian Lester himself took on the leading role. However, Lester's grandfather was already in poor health while filming in Jamaica, which is why he could not be interviewed for the series, and finally died a few days after the filming was finished.

In 2008 Lester also took on a leading role in Bonekickers , a BBC series about a team of archaeologists, which was discontinued after just one season.

In 2018 he was appointed to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , which awards the Oscars every year.

Filmography (selection)

Awards

Laurence Olivier Award

  • 2016: Nomination for Best Actor in Red Velvet

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ New Year Honors lists 2013. (PDF; 598 kB) December 29, 2012, p. 33 , accessed on April 1, 2014 (English).
  2. ^ Touch of Color takes Brum star Adrian to Hollywood. , Sunday Mercury. October 11, 1998. Archived from the original on May 17, 2011. Retrieved April 8, 2019. 
  3. ^ Marianne MacDonald: The player; Not only is Adrian Lester the National Theater's Henry V, he's also the chief con man in Hustle. It's a sparkling career forged on a penniless childhood with an absent father and a struggling mother. Marianne Macdonald meets a man driven to succeed. In: The Evening Standard. February 3, 2006, accessed January 6, 2019 .
  4. ^ Luke Leitch: National's new chief cats black actor as Henry V. In: The Evening Standard. August 16, 2002, accessed January 6, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Academy invites 928 to Membersphip . In: oscars.org (accessed June 26, 2018).
  6. ↑ Olivier awards 2016: complete list of nominations In: theguardian.com, February 29, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Lester, Adrian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 14, 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Birmingham , England