Ben Mendelsohn facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ben Mendelsohn
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Mendelsohn at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con
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| Born |
Paul Benjamin Mendelsohn
3 April 1969 |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1984–present |
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Works
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List of performances |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | 2 |
Ben Mendelsohn (born on April 3, 1969) is a well-known actor from Australia. He first became famous in Australia for his role in the movie The Year My Voice Broke (1987). Later, he gained international attention for his main role in the crime drama Animal Kingdom (2010).
Since then, Ben Mendelsohn has appeared in many popular films. These include The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Starred Up (2013), Lost River (2014), and Ready Player One (2018).
He also starred in the Netflix TV series Bloodline from 2015 to 2017. For his work on Bloodline, he won an important award called the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2016. In the same year, he played Orson Krennic in the Star Wars movie Rogue One. He played this character again in the TV series Andor in 2025.
Ben Mendelsohn has also joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He plays the character Talos in the superhero movie Captain Marvel (2019) and the Disney+ series Secret Invasion (2023). In 2024, he started playing the famous fashion designer Christian Dior in the TV series The New Look.
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Early Life and Family Background
Ben Mendelsohn was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. His mother, Carole Ann, was a registered nurse, and his father, Frederick Arthur Oscar Mendelsohn, is a well-known medical researcher. His father used to lead a big research center in Melbourne.
Ben, his two brothers (Tom and David), and his mother lived in Europe and the United States for a while when he was younger. They moved back to Melbourne when he was in primary school. He went to Mercersburg Academy in the U.S. and then to schools in Heidelberg and Eltham High School in Australia. He decided to take drama classes because he thought they would be easy. Ben was the only one of his friends who went to an audition for a production company that was advertised.
In 2009, Ben Mendelsohn appeared on an Australian TV show called Who Do You Think You Are?. On the show, he learned about his family history. He found out that his father's family was Jewish and came from a part of Prussia (now Poland). He also discovered that some of his mother's ancestors were convicts who were sent to Australia a long time ago.
Acting Career Highlights
After starting with some roles on TV, Ben Mendelsohn became widely known for his role in the movie The Year My Voice Broke (1987). For this role, he won an Australian Film Institute Award for Best Supporting Actor.
He then starred in other films like The Big Steal (1990) and Spotswood (1992), where he acted alongside Anthony Hopkins. In the early 2000s, he appeared in the Australian film Mullet and the Hollywood movie Vertical Limit.
In 2008, he was in Baz Luhrmann's big movie Australia. He also starred in the first season of the TV series Tangle in 2009. The same year, he was in the American science fiction film Knowing.
Breakthrough with Animal Kingdom
In 2010, Ben Mendelsohn played a major role in Animal Kingdom. He played Andrew "Pope" Cody, a criminal trying to avoid the police in the tough parts of Melbourne. This role earned him many awards, including the IF Award for Best Actor and the AFI's award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He was also named Actor of the Year by GQ Australia in 2010.
Hollywood Roles and TV Success
In 2012, Mendelsohn took on supporting roles in big Hollywood movies. He played the villain John Daggett in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. He also appeared in The Place Beyond the Pines.
In 2014, Ben Mendelsohn joined the cast of Bloodline, a Netflix original series. The show started in 2015, and critics praised Mendelsohn's acting. He won a Primetime Emmy Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance. The show ended after its third season in 2017.
In 2016, he played Director Krennic, a villain in the Star Wars movie Rogue One. He said that acting in a Star Wars film was "a childhood dream come true." A few years later, in 2018, he played Nolan Sorrento in Steven Spielberg's science fiction film Ready Player One.
He also joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Talos in Captain Marvel (2019). He played Talos again in a small appearance in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and in the Disney+ series Secret Invasion (2023). In 2020, Mendelsohn starred in the main role in the HBO crime series The Outsider. In 2025, he returned as Director Krennic in the second season of Andor.
Personal Life
Ben Mendelsohn married British-American journalist Emma Forrest in June 2012. They have a daughter, who was born in 2014. He also has another daughter from a previous relationship, Sophia Wright-Mendelsohn, who is also an actor. He and Emma Forrest divorced in 2016. As of 2022, he was engaged to be married again.
Awards and Recognitions
Ben Mendelsohn has won several awards for his acting.
- In 1987, he won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Year My Voice Broke.
- In 2010, he won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Animal Kingdom.
- In 2013, he won the BIFA for Best Supporting Actor for Starred Up.
- In 2016, he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Bloodline.
- In 2020, he won the AACTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Babyteeth.
See also
In Spanish: Ben Mendelsohn para niños
