Clive Owen

Clive Owen Vital Stats
Birth Name: Clive Owen
Birth Date: October 3, 1964
Birth Place: Keresley, Coventry, Warwickshire, England
Height: 6’2½”
Romantic Link: Sarah-Jane Fenton



Clive Owen Interesting Facts

From 2001 to 2002, Clive Owen did a series of commercials for BMW, playing the mysterious driver.

Clive Owen is such a huge David Bowie fan that in the ‘70s, he’d dye his hair whatever color Bowie was sporting at the time.



Clive Owen Biography

Born on October 3, 1964, in Coventry, England, Clive Owen, his four brothers (Gary, Alan and Lee were older, and Scott was younger) and mother were abandoned by his country music singer dad when Clive was all of 3 years old.

Soon after, Clive’s mother remarried and he was lucky enough to have a father figure to look up to (especially considering his dad didn’t resurface until Clive was 19 years old).

Clive Owen in Oliver!

As a child, Clive attended Binley Park Comprehensive School and was a good student… up until the acting bug bit him, that is. From the moment Clive starred in a stage play of Oliver!, he knew he wanted to become an actor.

Unfortunately for him, when asked by his teacher what he wanted to do with his life, Clive told her he wanted to be an actor, at which point she encouraged the entire class to laugh at him (and who’s laughing now, I wonder).

Clive rejects acting school

At 13 years old, Clive joined a youth theater and put all his energy into it, leaving his schooling to suffer by the wayside. After receiving zeros in all his classes except for English, Clive was about ready to dump school altogether. And even though a teacher saw his potential and encouraged him to continue his studies in drama school, Owen resisted.

The teacher did, however, land Owen an audition at Mountview School in London, and even purchased his train ticket to get there. Unfortunately, although Mountview accepted Owen as a student, Clive was a firm believer that acting couldn’t be taught and turned down the acceptance.

Unfortunately, the next two years would prove to be terrible for Owen, as he was unable to land an acting job, and he spent that time playing pool and waiting for the acting dry spell to pass.

Clive in Twelfth Night

Finally, in 1984, Owen decided that perhaps education wasn’t such a bad idea and enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London where he was taught alongside Ralph Fiennes and Gary Oldman.

After graduating in 1987, Owen joined the Young Vic Theater and began appearing in stage plays like Twelfth Night and The Cat And The Canary. It was in the stage play for Romeo and Juliet, however, where Owen, who was playing the lead, met and fell in love with Sarah-Jane Fenton, who was, fittingly enough, playing Juliet.

By 1988, Owen was landing steady work in movies like Vroom and Boon. After doing some very successful TV work between 1989 and 1993, Owen decided to move to the U.S. in order to land roles in American films.

Clive in The Rich Man’s Wife

His first American role was that of Devin O’Neil in TV’s Class of ’61. Every role he selected after that was radically different from the other for fear of being typecast.

In March 1995, Clive Owen married his Juliet and the two have since had two daughters, Hannah and Eve.

By 1996, Owen starred alongside Halle Berry in The Rich Man’s Wife. Although the film itself wasn’t very successful, audiences took notice of Owen.

In 1997’s Bent, Owen played Max, a gay man who gets sent to a concentration camp under the Nazi regime.

Clive Owen as Croupier

It was 1998’s Croupier, however, that really left Clive Owen’s name lingering on every woman’s lips. Playing casino croupier Jack Manfred, this very stylish film showed off exactly how appealing and seductive Owen could be.

Owen made a return to television from 1999 to 2000, starring as DCI Ross Tanner in the mini-series Second Sight.

Throughout 2001 and 2002, Owen starred in a series of BMW short films, in which he played the mysterious driver. It was in 2001 that Owen also landed a role in the Oscar-award winning Gosford Park, starring with Helen Mirren, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ryan Phillippe.

Clive star in The Bourne Identity

Next for Owen was The Bourne Identity in 2002, where he played The Professor out to kill Matt Damon’s character Jason Bourne.

All this success gave Owen the time he needed to develop his own projects, including 2003’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, about an ex-enforcer who gets sucked back into a life of crime after his brother is driven to suicide by a crime boss, played by Malcolm McDowell.

Also in 2003, Owen starred alongside Angelina Jolie in the drama Beyond Borders. Although Owen’s role is an unforgettable one, the movie did not do well at the box office.

Sexy Clive in Closer

2004 saw Owen starring in very recognizable movies Arthur, in which he had the title role and starred with the very beautiful Keira Knightley, and Closer, with an all star cast that included Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts and Jude Law.

Another successful year had just passed and more success was to come. In 2005, Clive Owen starred in two highly-anticipated films: Sin City and Derailed. Owen admits that he admires his Derailed costar Jennifer Aniston for having stuck with scheduled filming of the latter movie, even though she was going through a heavily publicized divorce to Brad Pitt at the time.

2006 proved to be yet another wildly successful year. Although the rumors that he would be selected as the next James Bond ran rampant, the role actually went to Daniel Craig. Nevertheless, Owen was quite busy with starring roles in Inside Man and The Children Of Men.

Clive Owen in The International


2007 was also another busy year for Owen, as he starred in Shoot ‘Em Up, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age.

But Clive is far from ready to take a rest, 2008 has him starring in The International and The Boys Are Back in Town, and 2009 confirms that Owen can be seen in the sequel to Sin City.

Resource:
IMDb.com - Clive Owen