Sir Ben Kingsley: I play Jewish roles because my grandmother was antisemitic

"The disturbing part of this story is that I remember within the same few days having a conversation with my maternal grandmother, who was inexplicably but quite vigorously antisemitic.

"So, the two impressions came to me almost simultaneously, and as a child, it was very difficult for me, impossible for me to counter my grandmother’s outburst, but I think a seed was planted in me that said to me, “One day I will speak.”

Kingsley has previously said that the root of his grandmother's antisemitism was that she was abandoned by a Russian-Jewish man who got her pregnant.

The veteran actor has taken on a number of Jewish roles in his career, starring in Schindler's List as Itzhak Stern, The Rabbi in Lucky Number Slevin and Simon Wiesenthal in an 1989 TV biopic of the Nazi hunter.

In a 2017 panel discussion about his roles, Kingsley said: “When we attempt to describe the Holocaust, the language fails. But we must tell tales.”