| Acted in school plays at Bolton |
| Made Shakesperean debut in "Coriolanus" |
| Spent summers at camp at Stratford-Upon-Avon as a teen; attended Shakespearean productions in evenings |
1961 | Professional stage debut, a production of "A Man for All Seasons" at the Nottingham Playhouse |
1962 | Spent a season as member of the Ipswich Repertory company |
1964 | London stage debut, "A Scent of Flowers" |
1964 | Made TV acting debut on episode of the British series "Kipling" |
1965 | Appeared as Claudio in Franco Zeffirelli's staging of "Much Ado About Nothing" |
1965 | Co-starred with Lynn Redgrave in the British TV production of "Sunday Out of Season" |
1966 | Cast in first film role in "The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-Ling-a-Ling"; film never completed |
1966 | Made American TV debut in serialized version of "David Copperfield"; played title character |
1967 | Originated role of Leonidik in the London production of "The Promise" opposite Judi Dench; made NYC debut in same role opposite Eileen Atkins |
1968 | Made feature debut reprising his stage role in film version of "The Promise" (released only in the U.K.) |
1969 | Played first onscreen homosexual in "A Touch of Love/Thank You All Very Much" |
1969 | Stage directorial debut, "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" at Liverpool Playhouse |
1970 | First played "Hamlet" in BBC production |
1970 | Starred in the one-person TV production "Keats," based on the life of the Romantic poet John Keats |
1972 | Founded and served as a director with Actors' Company |
1974 | Returned to the NYC stage as Edgar in "King Lear"; performed at Brooklyn Academy of Music |
1976 | First stage collaboration with college chum Trevor Nunn, "Romeo and Juliet" |
1976 | Had stage triumph as "Macbeth" opposite Judi Dench; reprised role opposite Dench in 1979 TV production |
1977 | Wrote the one-person show "Acting Shakespeare," which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival |
1979 | Portrayed Max, a gay man who pretends to be Jewish when captured by the Nazis, in "Bent" at the Royal Court Theatre in London |
1980 | Portrayed novelist D. H. Lawrence in the film biopic "Priest of Love" |
1980 | Toured sporadically throughout U.S. and Europe in "Acting Shakespeare" |
1980 | Won a Tony Award playing Salieri in the Broadway production of "Amadeus" |
1982 | "Acting Shakespeare" filmed for TV broadcast |
1982 | Earned acclaim playing a mentally challenged man in British TV movie "Walter," directed by Stephen Frears |
1982 | Undertook the role of the villain Chauvelin in the CBS TV-movie "The Scarlet Pimpernel" |
1983 | Appeared under much makeup as an elderly doctor in "The Keep" |
1983 | Reprised "Acting Shakespeare" on Broadway; received Tony nomination |
1984 | Returned to Broadway in for the short-lived production of "Wild Honey" |
1986 | Portrayed a British diplomat in one scene of the screen adaptation of David Hare's "Plenty" |
1989 | Starred as John Profumo in Michael Caton-Jones' "Scandal" |
1990 | Played the title role in "Richard III"; directed by Richard Eyre at the National Theater; also served as associate producer |
1991 | Embarked on world tour alternating as "Richard III" and Kent in "King Lear" |
1991 | Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts |
1993 | Had small role in the PBS miniseries "Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City" |
1993 | Landed cameo role as 'Death' in "The Last Action Hero" |
1993 | Played AIDS activist Bill Kraus in "And the Band Played On" (HBO); earned Emmy nomination |
1995 | Cast as a servant to Robert Downey Jr.'s Robert Merival in "Restoration" |
1995 | Wrote screenplay, executive produced, and starred in "Richard III"; directed by Richard Loncraine; moved setting to 1930s Europe |
1996 | Portrayed Czar Nicholas II of Russia in the HBO film "Rasputin"; garnered second Emmy nomination |
1997 | Had an extended cameo as Uncle Freddie in the film version of "Bent" |
1998 | Played Kurt Dussander, a former concentration camp officer, in Bryan Singer's "Apt Pupil" |
1998 | Portrayed James Whale, the British expatriate film director of "Frankenstein" (1931) and "The Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), in "Gods and Monsters"; earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination |
1998 | Starred in the Los Angeles stage production of "An Enemy of the People" |
2000 | Re-teamed with Bryan Singer for the big-screen version of the Marvel comic's "X-Men"; played the villain Magneto |
2001 | Portrayed the wizard Gandalf in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy; all were filmed back-to-back: "The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001); "The Two Towers" (2002), and "The Return of the King" (2003) |
2001 | Returned to Broadway opposite Helen Mirren in "The Dance of Death" |
2003 | Once again played Magneto in "X2" |
2005 | Co-starred with Natasha Richardson in the psychological thriller "Asylum" |
2006 | Portrayed Holy Grail historian, Sir Leigh Teabing, in Ron Howard's film adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling novel "The Da Vinci Code" |
2006 | Received an Emmy nomination for appearing as himself on an episode of HBO series "Extras" |
2006 | Reprised the role of Magneto for "X-Men: The Last Stand" |
2007 | Returned to the Royal Shakespeare Company for the productions of "King Lear" and "The Seagull"; both directed by Trevor Nunn |
2009 | Appeared in a revival of "Waiting for Godot" at London's Haymarket Theatre; starred opposite Patrick Stewart |
2009 | Production of "King Lear" broadcast in the U.K. on Channel 4 and shown on PBS in America; earned an Emmy nomination for Best Actor in a Television movie |
2009 | Starred as the charismatic, delicately despotic boss Two in the six-hour AMC miniseries "The Prisoner"; earned Emmy (2010) nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie |
2012 | Returned to Middle Earth as Gandalf in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien and directed by Peter Jackson |
