Pasión

Few actors get to enjoy the status of "overnight sensation". Next to none get to enjoy it twice. Yet this has happened to Clive Owen, the latest addition to the UK's canon of international superstars. Breaking through, back in 1990, as the wisecracking, sharp-suited wheeler-dealer Stephen Crane in the hit show Chancer, he was the hottest thing on TV. Then, after spending the best part of a decade seeking cinematic success, came the sleeper smash Croupier. Failing dismally in the UK, it looked at first to be a disaster. Yet the US critics loved it and, Stateside, it raked in millions, at the same time lifting Owen into the upper echelons. And, this time, he was ready.

Clive Owen was born on 3 October, 1964, in Coventry. His father, a Country and Western singer, walked out when he was three (he'd not meet him again for 16 years), and he was raised by his mother and stepfather, the latter working in the ticket office for British Rail. Clive was the fourth of five brothers. The eldest was Garry, now a salesman. Then came Alan and Lee, musicians (they'd release a single called Heartbeat), then Clive and Scott.

Attending Binley Park Comprehensive School, Clive was initially a good student, in the top stream. Then something thoroughly unexpected happened. Clive has often said that, for some unknown reason, he always wanted to act. But it was only after he played the Artful Dodger in a production of Oliver! that everyone else knew it too. Bitten badly by the bug, he couldn't concentrate on anything else, putting all his energy into the youth theatre he joined at 13. His schoolwork fell away dramatically. Sitting nine O-levels, he passed only one - English.

His persistence was amazing, really. When he first announced in class that he wanted to act, his teacher encouraged all the other kids to laugh at him. Thankfully the steely intensity he exudes onscreen is a real part of his character and he kept at it.