Mark Strong Biography

Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in films such as RocknRolla, Body of Lies, Syriana, The Young Victoria, Sherlock Holmes, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Kick-Ass, Green Lantern, Zero Dark Thirty, Robin Hood, and John Carter. He often portrays villains or antagonists.

Early life

Strong was born in London, the son of an Austrian mother and an Italian father. His father left the family soon after his birth, and he was brought up by his mother, who worked as an au pair. His English name is not a stage name; when he was a child, his mother changed his name by deed poll to help him fit in with his peers. He was baptised a Catholic. He speaks fluent German and some Italian.

Strong attended Wymondham College, where he sang in the punk bands The Electric Hoax and Private Party (the name of the latter was based on the idea that the band's shows would not be attended, due to prospective audiences thinking that the event was a "private party"). His original ambition was to become a lawyer, but after one year's study at university in Munich, he returned home to London, studying English and Drama at Royal Holloway and later attending Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Career

Strong is a familiar face on British television. He appeared in two Prime Suspect serials for ITV as Inspector (later Detective Chief Superintendent) Larry Hall, in Prime Suspect 3 (1993) and Prime Suspect 6 (2003). He also had starring roles in two BBC Two drama serials, Our Friends in the North (1996) and The Long Firm (2004), for which he earned a BAFTA nomination. He also played the villainous Colonel Brand in Sharpe's Mission (1996). He played the romantic lead, Mr. Knightley, in the ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Emma. In feature films, Strong played Steve in the 1997 adaptation of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch opposite Colin Firth

At the beginning of the 2000s he appeared in Heartlands, and in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Donmar Warehouse, for which he was nominated for the 2003 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. In 2005 he was featured in Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist (2005), played Mussawi in the film Syriana, and played an assassin called Sorter in Revolver (2005). Strong portrayed the traitorous Wictred in Tristan & Isolde, showing his talent with swordplay and since 2006, he has provided the narration in the BBC's genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?.

In 2007 Strong was one of the final two actors considered for the part of Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men; despite the persistence of rumours, he claims he was never offered the part. Strong was Pinbacker, the insane captain of Icarus I, the first ship that was sent to reignite the Sun in Sunshine (2007). Pinbacker was inspired by the character of Sergeant Pinback from Dark Star. The character's disfiguring burns were influenced by the injuries suffered by F1 driver Niki Lauda. Boyle described the character of Pinbacker as a representation of fundamentalism. The director also described the potentially unrealistic presence of Pinbacker as an example of something that breaks the pattern of realism, similar to his scene in Trainspotting (1996) in which Ewan McGregor's character dives into a toilet. This year he played prince Septimus, the youngest of the seven Stormhold princes, in Stardust.

In 2008 he played Nick Calderelli in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Mannie Miesel in Flashbacks of a Fool, Finn in Babylon A.D., Archy in RocknRolla, Philipp Bouhler in Goodand Hani Salaam, Jordanian intelligence chief and director of the feared GID in Body of Lies which Strong was nominated London Critics Circle Film Award for Best British Supporting Actor and his performance was mentioned by several critics, with Scott calling it "a marvel of exotic suavity and cool insinuation" while Ebert "particularly admired" his aura of suave control. Strong ascribed his casting to his performances in the 2005 films Syriana and Oliver Twist. The character Haani Salaam was modelled after the 2000"2005 GID chief Saad Kheir (1953"2009), whose involvement, according to the original author David Ignatius, in sharply handled interrogations without use of torture, a counter with a jihadist with his mother on the phone and being called the 'fingernail boss' were near accurately featured in the film. The next year he played a lead part in the Channel 4 film Endgame (2009). and he played Lord Blackwood, the main villain in Sherlock Holmes (2009), who has somehow returned after his execution with a plot to take over the British Empire using an arsenal of dark arts and new technologies. He worked with director Ritchie for the third time and said he appreciates the director's lack of ego and how easy he is to work with. The same year he played Frank D'Amico, the head of a criminal organization in Kick-Ass. Strong says he is drawn to playing the antagonist. He tries to "understand the purpose of the character", and then work on building a believable individual.

He then played Thaal Sinestro a Green Lantern and Hal Jordan's mentor, in the superhero film Green Lantern (2011). Mark Strong affirmed that the film will follow the origin story, "the film closely follows the early comics. Sinestro starts out as Hal Jordan's mentor, slightly suspicious and not sure of him because obviously Hal is the first human being who's made into a Green Lantern. He's certainly very strict and certainly unsure of the wisdom of Hal becoming a Green Lantern". Strong said the character "is a military guy but isn't immediately bad. It's the kind of person he is that lends himself to becoming bad over the course of the comics being written, but initially he's quite a heroic figure." He also revealed that the outfit and other aspects of the character very closely follow the character's early days, "That widow's peak and thin mustache was for some reason originally based on David Niven.... So I would like to do justice to the Sinestro that was conceived for the comic books".

In 2011 he was the voice Pod of The Secret World of Arrietty and the voice of the character Captain Titus of the Ultramarines Chapter in the video game Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The same year, and most notably, he played the role of Jim Prideaux in the remake of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which was earlier played by Ian Bannen in the iconic original 1979 BBC series starring Alec Guinness. The film premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on 5 September 2011. The film received generally positive reviews. The film holds an 83% 'Fresh' approval rating from 203 reviews collected by review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a dense puzzle of anxiety, paranoia, and espionage that director Tomas Alfredson pieces together with utmost skill". Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0"100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 85 based on 42 reviews, equating to "universal acclaim".

The next year he played Clive Cornell in The Guard which is the most successful independent Irish film of all time in terms of Irish box-office receipts, overtaking The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006) which previously held this status. The film has a 95 percent positive rating according to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Strong began filming the role of Jacob Sternwood in the British thriller, Welcome to the Punch. He was Matai Shang, the leader of the Therns in John Carter. He then starred in Kathryn Bigelow's action thriller film Zero Dark Thirty with co-stars Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt. It was independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. The film had its premiere in Los Angeles, California on 19 December 2012 and had its wide release on 11 January 2013. The film received wide critical acclaim and was nominated for five Oscars for the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Chastain) and Best Original Screenplay. The film won one, for Best Sound Editing. Zero Dark Thirty earned four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Picture " Drama, Best Director, and Best Actress " Drama for Chastain.

In November 2012, Strong and Taissa Farmiga were cast as John and Anna in Mindscape will mark the feature-length directorial debut of Spaniard Jorge Dorado. The story of the film, written by Guy and Martha Holmes, centres on a man with the ability to enter people's memories who is working on the case of a brilliant but problematic teenager to determine whether she is a sociopath or the victim of a trauma. The film comes to theaters in later 2013.

Personal life

Strong lives in London with his wife, Liza Marshall. He is a longtime friend of actor Daniel Craig, who is the godfather of Strong's eldest son. He dubbed Craig into German, as German with an English accent was required for Obsession (1997).

In an interview he said that his style icon is David Bowie and when he was a child he wanted to be the French actor Alain Delon: "I remember watching him in films and though I couldn't understand a word he was saying I remember thinking he looked great. Failing that, an astronaut, after watching the moon landing on a tiny, portable, black-and-white TV at my gran's house".

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	'	Television producer
1993	Prime Suspect 3	Inspector Larry Hall
1993	Century	Policeman
1994	Captives	Kenny
1996	Our Friends in the North	Terry "Tosker" Cox
1996	Sharpe's Mission	Brand
1997	Fever Pitch	Steve
1997	Gold	Ed Smithson
1998	Spoonface Steinberg	Father
1998	'	Dave Summers
1999	Trust	Michael Mitcham
1999	Births, Marriages and Deaths	Terry
1999	In the Name of Love	Chris Monroe
1999	Elephant Juice	Frank
1999	Sunshine	István Sors
2000	Bomber	Colonel Chris Forsyth
2000	Anna Karenina	Oblonsky
2001	To End All Wars	Dusty Miller
2001	Hotel	Ferdinand
2001	'	Doug
2001	Superstition	Antonio Gabrieli
2002	Fields of Gold	Dr. Tolkin
2002	Heartlands	Ian
2002	Falling Apart	Pete
2003	Some Place Safe	Dad	Short film
2003	It's All About Love	Arthur
2003	Henry VIII	Duke of Norfolk
2003	Prime Suspect 6: The Last Witness	Det. Chief Supt. Larry Hall
2004	'	Harry Starks	Nominated " British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
2005	Revolver	Sorter
2005	Oliver Twist	Toby Crackit
2005	Walk Away and I Stumble	Andy Spader
2005	Syriana	Mussawi
2006	Tristan & Isolde	Wictred
2006	Low Winter Sun	Det. Sgt. Frank Agnew
2006	Scenes of a Sexual Nature	Louis
2006"2012	Who Do You Think You Are?	Narrator
2007	Sunshine	Pinbacker
2007	Stardust	Septimus
2008	Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day	Nick
2008	Flashbacks of a Fool	Mannie Miesel
2008	Babylon A.D.	Finn
2008	RocknRolla	Archy
2008	Body of Lies	Hani Salaam	Nominated " London Critics Circle Film Award for Best British Supporting Actor
2008	Good	Philipp Bouhler
2009	Endgame	Dr. Niel Barnard
2009	'	Sir John Conroy
2009	Sherlock Holmes	Lord Henry Blackwood	Nominated " MTV Movie Award for Best Fight
2010	Kick-Ass	Frank D'Amico	Nominated " MTV Movie Award for Best Fight
2010	Robin Hood	Sir Godfrey
2010	'	Khabarov
2011	Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine	Titus	Voice
2011	'	Narrator
2011	'	Clive Cornell
2011	'	Guern
2011	Green Lantern	Thaal Sinestro
2011	'	Pod	Voice (United Kingdom dub)
2011	Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy	Jim Prideaux	Central Ohio Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast Georgia Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast YouMovie Award for Best Cast Nominated " Chlotrudis Award for Best Cast
2011	Black Gold	Sultan Amar
2012	John Carter	Matai Shang
2012	Zero Dark Thirty	George
2013	Welcome to the Punch	Jacob Sternwood
2013	Mindscape	John
2013	Closer to the Moon	Max Rosenthal
2013	Justin and the Knights of Valour	Heraclio	Voice
2013	Low Winter Sun	Frank Agnew	TV Series
2014	Before I Go to Sleep
2014	The Imitation Game