Bob Hoskins

Robert William "Bob" Hoskins, Jr. (born 26 October 1942) is a retired English actor known for playing Cockneys and gangsters. He has appeared in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980), Mona Lisa (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Hook (1991), and Neverland (2011). Hoskins was the recipient of the prestigious Prix d'interprétation masculine as well as winning the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama for his role in Mona Lisa and an International Emmy Award for best actor for his appearance on BBC One drama The Street in 2009. --- Hoskins was born in Bury St Edmunds, West Suffolk, the son of Elsie Lillian (née Hopkins), a cook and nursery school teacher, and Robert William Hoskins, Sr., a bookkeeper and lorry driver. One of Hoskins' grandmothers was a Romani of the British Romanis. From the age of two weeks old, he was brought up in Finsbury Park, London. Hoskins left school at the age of 15 with a single O-Level and worked as a porter, lorry driver and window cleaner. He worked on a three-year accountancy course but dropped out. Hoskins' performances in British films such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and Mona Lisa (1986) won him the wider approval of the critics and, in the case of the latter, a Cannes Award, Best Actor Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also delivered comic turns in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985) and Super Mario Bros. (1993). Hoskins was not initially aware that Super Mario Bros. was based on the popular video game of the same name. His son had asked him what film he was working on, and recognising it, showed Hoskins the video game on the Nintendo video game console. In a 2007 interview withThe Guardian, Hoskins spoke of his regret at appearing in Super Mario Bros.. He revealed that despite being praised for his performance on the film, he was extremely unhappy with the film and was greatly angered by his experiences making it, referring to it as the "worst thing I ever did". During the late 1980s and early 1990s he appeared in advertising for the recently privatised companies of British Gas and British Telecom (now BT Group). Hoskins had a small role as a rock band's manager in the Pink Floyd film The Wall. He was slated to be a last-minute replacement in the film The Untouchables if star Robert De Niro had not decided to play Al Capone. When De Niro took the part, director Brian De Palma mailed Hoskins a cheque for £20,000 with a "Thank You"note, which prompted Hoskins to call up De Palma and ask him if there were any more movies he didn't want him to be in. --- Hoskins' father was a communist and brought up Hoskins as an atheist, but Hoskins now describes himself as an agnostic. In 1967, aged 25, Hoskins spent a short period of time volunteering in kibbutz Zikim in Israel. In an interview, when asked what he owed his parents, he said, "Confidence. My mum used to say to me, 'If somebody doesn't like you, fuck 'em, they've got bad taste.'" When asked which living person he most despised, Hoskins named Tony Blair and claimed that "he's done even more damage than Thatcher". He made light of his similarities with film actor Danny DeVito, who he joked would play him in a film about his life. Hoskins announced his retirement from acting on 8 August 2012, due to his ongoing battle with Parkinson's disease.