Biography
Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Clive Owen is celebrated by audiences in the U.K., the United States and around the world. His diverse choice of film credits proves him to be one of the most versatile actors of our day. With his captivating performance in the title role of Mike Hodges’s sleeper hit Croupier, critics have compared him to the likes of Bogart, Mitchum and Connery. In 2005 he proved himself a screen star by winning a Golden Globe and picking up an Academy Award nomination for his role as Larry in Closer directed by Mike Nichols. The film also starred Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Natalie Portman. Clive, a British actor, first came onto the scene in several British and American telefilms. In 1991 he starred in his first big hit, the UK television series “Chancer.” Other UK telefilm credits included the BBC's “Second Sight,” which aired on PBS's “Mystery!” Clive made his film debut in Beeban Kidron’s Vroom in 1988, in which he restores a classic‐American car to take off on the road with costar David Thewlis. Then, in 1991, he went on to play a brother who acts upon his incestuous feelings in Stephen Poliakoff’s Close My Eyes. Later, he continued to play complex characters as he stars as a reckless homosexual in corrupt pre‐war Germany who finds unconditional love while in a Nazi war camp in Sean Mathias’ Bent. In 2001 and 2002 respectively, he went on to star in Joel Hershman’s offbeat British comedy, Greenfingers, Mike Hodges’s Croupier and Robert Altman’s star-studded Gosford Park. Clive’s next films only added to his already brilliant and varied choice of film credits. He starred with Angelina Jolie in the romantic war drama Beyond Borders; the Mike Hodges thriller I’ll Sleep When I Am Dead; action war drama King Arthur; Sin City, which co‐starred Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba; Derailed opposite Jennifer Aniston; Spike Lee’s thriller Inside Man opposite Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster; Alfonso Cuaron’s critically acclaimed action‐packed film Children of Men opposite Julianne Moore and Michael Caine; Michael Davis’s Shoot Em Up and Elizabeth: The Golden Age with Cate Blanchett, where he portrayed Sir Walter Raleigh. Other film credits include Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity opposite Julia Roberts, The International with Naomi Watts, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s The Intruders, Scott Hicks’s Boys are Back, Trust with Catherine Keener and Viola Davis, directed by David Schwimmer, The Killer Elite with Robert De Niro and Jason Statham, James Marsh’s critically acclaimed Shadow Dancer with Andrea Riseborough, Guillame Canet’s Blood Ties with Marion Cotillard, Zoe Saldana, Mila Kunis and Billy Crudup, and Fred Schepisi’s Words & Pictures with Juliette Binoche. In television, Clive was most recently seen starring in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Knick” for Cinemax, for which he earned a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination. Clive also serves as producer and is currently in production on season two. In 2011, Clive made his American TV debut in HBO’s Emmy nominated film “Hemingway and Gellhorn,” starring opposite Nicole Kidman and directed by Phil Kaufman. His performance earned him Emmy, SAG and Golden Globe nominations. Clive is also an acclaimed stage actor with roles included his portrayal of Romeo at the Young Vic, starring in Sean Mathias’s staging of Noel Coward’s Design for Living, and playing the lead role in the original production of Patrick Marber’s Closer at the Royal National Theater in 1997. In the fall of 2001, he starred in London in Lawrence Boswell’s staging of Peter Nichols’ A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Clive starred as “the driver” in the series of BMW internet short features entitled “The Hire,” each directed by John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Wong Kar‐wai, Guy Ritchie and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
