Role Recall: Ben Kingsley on His Career From the Mahatma to the Mandarin

Ben Kingsley has been headlining films for over three decades, and he shows no signs of slowing down. He had the biggest financial success of his career in 2013 with "Iron Man 3," and has six features lined up for this year, including the Ridley Scott biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings."

Kingsley recently reprised his role as Iron Man's nemesis the Mandarin — aka washed-up English actor Trevor Slattery — in the Marvel One-Shot titled "All Hail the King." The 70-year-old Knight Bachelor spoke to Yahoo Movies on the phone about returning to the role for the short film, which is included on the Blu-ray/DVD release of "Thor: The Dark World." And he regaled us with stories from five of his most memorable roles, from his Oscar-winning breakout in "Gandhi" to his surprising turn as a comic-book villain.

[Related: The 50 Greatest Actors Alive: No. 41 Ben Kingsley]

"Gandhi" (1982)

Kingsley was a stage actor with just one film credit to his name before being cast in the title role of the iconic Indian leader. When asked what he remembered most about the experience, Kingsley's thoughts went to director of the eight-time Oscar-winning film, Richard Attenborough.

Richard Attenborough's endless affection, patience, and dedication to getting the purest character on the screen he possibly could. I don't mean pure in the moral sense. I mean to distill the essence of an extremely complicated character — a very long life — and compress it into three hours. My journey in that film was over 50 years, as you know. So Attenborough, Attenborough, Attenborough is what comes to mind. I love that man. I owe him my career. He was the most beautiful gracious man to work with.

"Schindler's List" (1993)

Kingsley, whose family lineage on his mother's side traces back to some Eastern European Jewish heritage, was profoundly affected by filming director Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama in Poland.

I arrived on set one day ... feeling deeply angry at the persistence of European anti-Semitism. And I was so distressed by it, given that 6 million Jews died in Europe, and there was still European anti-Semitism. We smelt it. We felt it whilst filming. I arrived on set one day and Steven [Spielberg] said, "How are you?" I said, "I'm f---ing angry."

And he helped me, and said, "Well, we'll use your anger." I thought that was such an intelligent response. You can cut out the expletive if you want, but that's how I felt that morning. And dear Steven took care of all of us and protected us. It was a raw, very difficult film to make, but it was a privilege to make it.

"Sexy Beast" (2002)

Kingsley defied expectations again with his brash and energetic turn as the unhinged British gangster Don Logan, which earned him another Oscar nomination. It was a performance unlike anything he had done before, and according to his co-star Ray Winstone, it was closer to reality than even Kingsley could have anticipated.

I was very delayed by a previous film and I arrived on set much later than I wanted to, and I knew I was filming a very complex scene the very next day. As soon as I opened my mouth as my character, Ray Winstone — who knows these men, who's lived amongst them, who knows that part of London — said immediately to the wonderful director, "I know the man Ben is playing. I know where he lives. I know what car he drives. I know what he does for a living. I don't know where you got this from," but, he said, "you are dead on. You are absolutely on the money."

You know, for a first day's filming, working with Ray Winstone who is so much a part of this extraordinary London — this amazing, dangerous, attractive, sexy world — just for him to say, "You know what? You've got it," is a very, very generous thing. I am always impressed by the generosity of others when I work. Attenborough, Spielberg, Ray Winstone.

"House of Sand and Fog" (2003)

Kingsley received yet another Oscar nomination for playing yet another nationality. In the adaptation of the novel by Andre Dubus III, he plays an Iranian military man struggling to make a life for himself in America.

Vadim Perelman, with whom I should be working again shortly, he bought this novel at an airport. By the time he got off the plane, he practically written it in his head. He got that film off the ground so quickly, it's astonishing. He's a very determined, very strong, very gifted director. It was his first film. I've worked with some great first time directors, and it was his first film, just like the director of "Sexy Beast," it was his first film.

We had some, not long, brief very, very accurate debates on set. I think he's a director that trusts me and he trusts my choices. It isn't about trusting the director; it's about hoping and praying that the director — once he or she's given you the role — trusts you, and Vadim trusts me. He trusted me with a role that involved areas of which all of us are ignorant. We'll never go through that degree of stress, like Steven and the Holocaust. We will never in our lives, thank God, go through that stress and he trusted my choices.

"Hugo" (2011)

In his second film with director Martin Scorsese (after 2010's "Shutter Island"), Kingsley played another historical figure: groundbreaking French filmmaker Georges Méliès.

Martin Scorsese. There's only one way I am able to put this, to describe how he directs, and it's often misunderstood. It's often sentimentalized, because he directs as a lover. In other words, he brings all the passion and attention to you as a great lover should. He directs with love and he directs as a lover. Sometimes it stings. Sometimes, it's tender. He's a surprisingly tender man given the amount of violence he puts on the screen.

"Iron Man 3" (2013)

Kingsley followed fellow Oscar winners Jeff Bridges and Anthony Hopkins into the Marvel Universe to play Tony Stark's comic-book nemesis, the Mandarin. But writer-director Shane Black threw a curveball to fans by making the villain just a figurehead, with his true identity as a has-been actor revealed late in the film.

I tend to be very, very still and quiet in my preparation. I don't fuss around. I just put things on the back burner until suddenly they appear. Now, I have no idea how that works, it just does, and the director slightly ambushed me one day, coming to my trailer saying "We need to record his voice." So, I thought, "OK." He gave me a day's notice, of course. Anyway, it suddenly came out.

My voices and my characters are always an amalgam of voices I've heard before. So nothing is invented. It's always rooted in some kind of truth that I've heard before, either a famous person or an acquaintance. It's lodged in there somewhere in my memory bank, and I access my memory bank and put these things together and out it comes. It's as bizarre and odd and simple as that. He just appeared and Shane loved it. I did the recording the next day and Shane said, "There he is," and a lot of that recording on that day is used in the trailer.

I needed a voice of authority, so clearly I had to find some intonations from American political broadcasts. So it wasn't just one, but it was a particular intonation from certain broadcasts made during election time where certain words were emphasized. They're lengthened. They're dwelt on. Certain vowels sounds are stretched for effect. So it was the political broadcasts, the political speeches on TV, the campaign trail stuff that I found useful. And of course, we hear it. We hear it every year. We hear it on the news worldwide. You get to hear these voices. You get to know these voices. It was a political speech that I found must be the backbone of this guy.

[Photos: Ben Kingsley's 5 Greatest Roles]