1978
Midnight Express
Plays Max and earns a supporting-actor Oscar nomination.
FLM.REDJOHN
HURT
จอห์น เฮิร์ต
A distinctive voice across stage and screen
From Midnight Express and Alien to The Elephant Man.
Shirebrook, Derbyshire, England
Characters under extraordinary pressure
John Hurt was an English actor born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, on 22 January 1940. Across stage, television and film, his distinctive voice and screen presence supported a wide range of characters. He died on 25 January 2017.
Hurt made his film debut in The Wild and the Willing (1962). His television portrayal in The Naked Civil Servant later won him a British Academy Television Award for best actor.
In Midnight Express (1978), he played Max and received a BAFTA supporting-actor award and an Oscar nomination. The following year he appeared as Kane in Ridley Scott’s Alien, a role tied to one of the film’s most memorable scenes.
Hurt played John Merrick in David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980). His performance won the BAFTA for leading actor and received an Academy Award nomination in the same category.
His later screen work included Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Harry Potter films. In 2012 BAFTA recognized his outstanding British contribution to cinema, honoring a career that moved between intimate dramas and popular genre films.
Selected performances
1979
Alien
Plays Nostromo crew member Kane.
1980
The Elephant Man
Plays John Merrick and wins a BAFTA.
1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Plays Winston Smith.
Performance readings are FLM.RED editorial interpretation.
Films in FLM.RED
Titles in this collection; not a complete filmography.
Sources & image notes
- BFI — career, film roles and awards
- Golden Globes — birth, death and credits
- BAFTA — television and film awards
- BAFTA — career interview
- IMDb — biography
Portrait illustration: FLM.RED.