Clive Owen has become one of the most recognisable faces in British cinema and has enjoyed success both her and in America.
And he's back on the big screen this week with his latest film The Boys Are Back, based on the book The Boys Are Back In Town by Simon Carr.
Like many actors Owen kicked off his career in TV in the late eighties with appearances in Precious Bane for the BBC and Vroom for channel 4.
Over the next couple of years he juggled television roles along with work on the stage. But it was his role in Close My Eyes, a Stephen Poliakoff movie in 1991 that brought him to everyone's attention.
The film, which also starred Alan Rickman, follows the incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister and went on to win the Evening Standard film award for best picture.
By 1996 Hollywood came calling as he starred alongside Halle Berry in The Rich Man's Wife before going on to star in Croupier.
By the late nineties and the turn of the century he was juggling movies as well as returning to TV roles.
But as the years have gone by he has focused on the movie side of the career and he career slowly started to climb.
He worked on the likes of Gosford Park, as part of an ensemble cast including Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon as well as The Bourne Identity.
But it was Closer in 2004 that really propelled his career further. Starring alongside Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Natalie Portman.
The movie is set in contemporary London, a story of passion, drama, love, and abandonment involving four strangers--their chance meetings, instant attractions and casual betrayals.
For his performance Owen was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and winning the Golden Globe and Bafta.
Over the next couple of years he mixed and matched his roles moving from King Arthur to Sin City to Children of Men.
After Elizabeth: The Golden Age and Shoot 'Em Up in 2007 we have to wait until last year before Clive Owen once again graced the big screen.
And he found box office success last year with The International, starring alongside Naomi Watts, and Duplicity which reunited him with Julia Roberts.
But this week he takes on the lead role in The Boys Are Back. The movie is a true story of a man who must suddenly raise his two sons alone after the untimely passing of his second wife.
The ill-prepared Joe, who is dealing with his own loss, is confronted with the daily challenges of parenthood while coping with his young son Artie's expressions of grief.
They soon are joined by Harry, Joe's teenage son from his first marriage, who brings his own personal "baggage" into the mix.
When things go terribly awry, Joe is forced to step up and behave like a parent, but must figure out how to do so without completely abandoning the joy and exuberance shared in their more child-like world.
Also on the horizon for Owen is Inside Man 2 and Sin City 2.
The Boys Are Back is released 22nd January
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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