NO, IT'S not your imagination. Ben Kingsley is everywhere.
The Oscar-winning actor is perhaps best known for his performance as an avatar of nonviolence ("Gandhi") or a thug whose very existence seems to promise brutality at any moment ("Sexy Beast"). But in a slew of films this summer, Kingsley proves he can do a little bit of everything, from playing a cross-eyed spiritualist in the recently released comedy "The Love Guru" to the long-haired, burned-out psychiatrist who befriends his teenage drug dealer in "The Wackness," which hits theaters early next month.
"I love to be reckless between action and cut," said Kingsley, 64, between sips of English Breakfast tea. "I'm hitting every mark that's taped on the floor, guaranteed, but within those beautiful constraints which I love, there must be a letting go, a recklessness."
"Sir Ben" can also be seen skulking through cinemas as the sinister personification of the military-industrial complex in "War, Inc." And after "Love Guru" and "Wackness," he'll be back in theaters again in August with "Elegy," as a respected teacher and critic whose world is shaken by an affair with a much younger woman. Meanwhile, his turn as a Russian cop in the thriller "Transsiberian" awaits release, the IRA thriller "Fifty Dead Men Walking" is in post-production, and he'll soon complete work on Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" before playing the villain in the film adaptation of the "Prince of Persia" video game.
Even for a man who lately has averaged making three films a year, this is a lot.
"But it doesn't feel pressured because I love my job," said Kingsley. "It feels wonderful."
Kingsley uses what he calls "mini-myths" to anchor his performances, boiling the essence of his characters down to easily accessible micro-narratives, such as when he played Anne Frank's father, Otto, in the 2001 TV movie "Anne Frank: The Whole Story."
"I reduced [the role to]: 'Once upon a time there was a little girl at school waiting for her parents to collect her. . . . She saw her father standing at the school gate; she turned to her friends and said with a beatific smile, "See that man over there? That's my dad." ' That's all I needed. Her father was everything to her and he failed to protect her, and it devastated him.
"It's these little psychological gestures within a character that will sustain me," he explains. "And I find they unlock the same emotional energy now, today, here, as they did when I was filming them."
