Cary Elwes
Ivan Simon Cary Elwes is an English actor and writer. He is best known for his leading film roles as Westley in The Princess Bride, Robin Hood in , and Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the Saw film series. He is also known for leading roles in films like Glory, Hot Shots!, and The Jungle Book, as well as supporting roles in films including Days of Thunder, Twister, Kiss the Girls, Liar Liar, Michael Collins in From the Earth to the Moon, Cradle Will Rock, Shadow of the Vampire, The Cat's Meow, Ella Enchanted, A Christmas Carol, and No Strings Attached. He has had recurring roles in television series including The X-Files, Seinfeld, Psych, and Stranger Things. He joined the third season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as Gavin Hawk, a famed Broadway actor.
Early life
Ivan Simon Cary Elwes was born on 26 October 1962 in Westminster, London, the youngest of three sons of portrait painter Dominic Elwes and interior designer and socialite Tessa Kennedy. He is the brother of artist Damian Elwes and film producer Cassian Elwes. His stepfather, Elliott Kastner, was an American film producer. His paternal grandfather was painter Simon Elwes, whose own father was the diplomat and tenor Gervase Elwes. His other great-grandfathers include the diplomat Rennell Rodd, 1st Baron Rennell and industrialist Ivan Rikard Ivanović. Elwes has English, Irish, Scottish, Croatian Jewish, and Serbian ancestry, the latter two from his maternal grandmother, Daška McLean, whose second husband, Billy McLean, was an operative for Special Operations Executive during World War II.One of Elwes's relatives is John Elwes, who was believed to be the inspiration for Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, having been referenced by Charles Dickens himself in chapter six of his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend. Elwes himself played five roles in the 2009 film adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Through his maternal grandfather, Elwes is also related to Sir Alexander William "Blackie" Kennedy, one of the first photographers to document the archaeological site of Petra following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Elwes was brought up as a Roman Catholic and was an altar boy at Westminster Cathedral, although he did not attend denominational schools as most of the men on his father's side of the family had, including his father. His paternal relatives include such clerics as Dudley Charles Cary-Elwes, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Northampton, Abbott Columba Cary-Elwes, and Father Luke Cary-Elwes. He discussed this in an interview while he was filming the 2005 CBS television film Pope John Paul II, in which he played the young priest Karol Wojtyła.
Elwes's parents divorced when he was four years old. In 1975, when Elwes was 13, his father died by suicide. He was educated at Harrow School, and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1981, he moved to the United States to study acting at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. While living there, Elwes studied acting at both the Actors Studio and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute under the tutelage of Al Pacino's mentor, Charlie Laughton. As a teenager, he also worked as a production assistant on the films Absolution, Octopussy, and Superman, where he was assigned to Marlon Brando. When Elwes introduced himself to the famous actor, Brando insisted on calling him "Rocky" after Rocky Marciano.
Career
Film
Elwes made his acting :wikt:debut|debut in 1984 with Marek Kanievska's film Another Country, which was loosely based on the English boarding school exploits of British spies, Burgess, Philby and MacLean. He played James Harcourt, a gay student. He went on to play Guilford Dudley in the British historical drama film Lady Jane, opposite Helena Bonham Carter. He was then cast as a stable-boy-turned-swashbuckler Westley in Rob Reiner's fantasy-comedy The Princess Bride, which was based on the novel of the same name by William Goldman. It was a modest box office success, but received critical acclaim, earning a score of 97% on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Since being released on home video and television, the film has become a cult classic.Elwes continued to work steadily, varying between dramatic roles, such as in the Oscar-winning Glory, and comedic roles, as in Hot Shots!. In 1993, he starred as Robin Hood in Mel Brooks's comedy, . Elwes then appeared in supporting roles in such films as Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Crush, The Jungle Book, Twister, Liar Liar, and Kiss the Girls. In 1999, he portrayed famed theatre and film producer John Houseman for Tim Robbins in his ensemble film based on Orson Welles's musical, Cradle Will Rock. Following that, he travelled to Luxembourg to work with John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire. In 2001, he co-starred in Peter Bogdanovich's ensemble film The Cat's Meow portraying movie mogul Thomas Ince, who died mysteriously while vacationing with William Randolph Hearst on his yacht.
In 2004, Elwes starred in the horror–thriller Saw which, at a budget of a little over $1 million, grossed over $100 million worldwide. The same year he appeared in Ella Enchanted, this time as the villain, not the hero. He made an uncredited appearance as Sam Green, the man who introduced Andy Warhol to Edie Sedgwick, in the 2006 film Factory Girl. In 2007, he appeared in Garry Marshall's Georgia Rule opposite Jane Fonda.
In 2010, he returned to the Saw franchise in Saw 3D, the seventh film in the series, as Dr. Lawrence Gordon. In 2011, he was selected by Ivan Reitman to star alongside Natalie Portman in No Strings Attached. That same year, Elwes and Garry Marshall teamed up again in the ensemble romantic comedy New Year's Eve opposite Robert de Niro and Halle Berry.
In 2012, Elwes starred in the independent drama The Citizen. and the following year Elwes joined Selena Gomez for the comedy ensemble, Behaving Badly directed by Tim Garrick. In 2014, he starred in John Herzfeld's ensemble comedy Reach Me. In 2015, he completed four movies: the ensemble drama Sugar Mountain directed by Richard Gray; and the dramas H8RZ, directed by Derrick Borte, We Don't Belong Here, opposite Anton Yelchin and Catherine Keener directed by Peer Pedersen, and Being Charlie which reunited Elwes with director Rob Reiner after 28 years and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
In January 2016, Elwes portrayed Andy Warhol opposite Kevin Spacey in The Billionaire Boys Club directed by James Cox.
Television
Elwes made his first television appearance in 1996 as David Lookner on Seinfeld. Two years later he played astronaut Michael Collins in the Golden Globe Award-winning HBO miniseries From the Earth To the Moon. The following year Elwes was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television for his portrayal of Colonel James Burton in The Pentagon Wars directed by Richard Benjamin. In 1999, he guest starred as Dr. John York in an episode of the television series The Outer Limits. Shortly afterward he received another Golden Satellite Award nomination for his work on the ensemble NBC Television movie Uprising opposite Jon Voight directed by Jon Avnet. Elwes had a recurring role in the final season of Chris Carter's hit series The X-Files as FBI Assistant Director Brad Follmer.In 2004, he portrayed serial killer Ted Bundy in the A&E Network film The Riverman, which became one of the highest rated original movies in the network's history and garnered a prestigious BANFF Rockie Award nomination. The following year, Elwes played the young Karol Wojtyła in the CBS television film Pope John Paul II, his second time working with Jon Voight. The TV film was highly successful not only in North America but also in Europe, where it broke box office records in the late Pope's native Poland and became the first film ever to break $1 million in three days.
In 2007, he made a guest appearance on the episode "" as a Mafia lawyer. In 2009, he played the role of Pierre Despereaux, an international art thief, in the fourth-season premiere of Psych. In 2010, he returned to Psych, reprising his role in the second half of the fifth season, again in the show's sixth season, and again in the show's eighth season premiere. In 2014 Elwes played Hugh Ashmeade, Director of the CIA, in the second season of the BYUtv series Granite Flats.
In May 2015, Elwes was cast as a series regular in Crackle's first streaming network series drama, The Art of More, which explores the cutthroat world of premium auction houses. He played Arthur Davenport, a shrewd and eccentric world-class collector of illegal art and antiquities. The series debuted on 19 November and was picked up for a second season.
In April 2018 Elwes was cast as Larry Kline, Mayor of Hawkins, for the third season of the Netflix series Stranger Things, which premiered in July 2019. In May 2019, it was announced that he would be joining the third season of the Amazon series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as Gavin Hawk.