Ivan Blakeley Kaye (born 1 July 1961) is an English actor and producer. His international fame came with roles in historical drama shows like the Duke of Milan in all three seasons of The Borgias,[1] and King Aelle in the first four Seasons of History channel's series Vikings.[2] More recent projects include action thriller Gunpowder Milkshake, the series pilot for Amazon's adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, the first British original Disney+ series Wedding Season and a leading role in the Irish comedy feature film Apocalypse Clown. In the UK, he is also widely known for many TV roles, including stints on Bad Girls and Bugs, and his role as Bryan in the comedy series The Green Green Grass.[3]
Early life
Kaye was born on 1 July 1961 in Northampton, Northamptonshire.[4] His passion for entertainment started in early childhood when he recreated television adverts at age two and performed shows with his friends throughout his childhood. As an eight-year-old boy, a key experience strengthened his enthusiasm and he joined a youth theatre group at age eleven, taking over organisational duties some years later.[5] The only family member to have been involved in the entertainment industry before was Kaye's maternal grandmother who had been a musical star in the 1920s.[5]
As his parents were social workers who moved frequently, Kaye attended thirteen different senior schools and experienced bullying along the way. It was in a school fight that he got his nose broken.[6] As his parents ran hostels for mentally ill people, adolescents and delinquents, Kaye came in contact with various types of behaviours and people from an early age. According to his own appraisal, this experience has been a helpful factor for the development of his wide-ranging repertoire.[5] While earning his degree in English Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury on the insistence of his parents, he performed in as many student plays as possible and started his professional career right afterward, getting an agent after one of his first serious performances in his early twenties and making his first West End theatre appearance early on.[5]
Hence Kaye had a successful theatre career already before starting his television work in his thirties. He decided to leave the theatre and turn to television in order to be able to spend time with his children while they were growing up because theatre performances in the evenings would have meant that he would not have been at home when they returned from school and university.[7]
In 1990, he started his television career by guest starring in the crime shows The Paradise Club and The Bill. In 1992 he played the leading part Sam Sterne in ITV's crime show Sam Saturday.[9] Since then he has played almost 50 roles in television and, from 2004, in movies (Layer Cake, Control).[8]
Aside from his villain roles as cold-blooded Polo Yakur (a "stand-out performance"[10]) and unscrupulous Duke Ludovico it is mainly his portrayal of King Aelle - in Vikings the deadly enemy and nemesis of the legendary hero of the show Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) - that has recently shaped Kaye's international profile. In his Twitter bio he describes himself as "Villain for Hire".[11] His performances in the second part of season 4 of Vikings have been met with increased interest[12] as his character King Aelle is of pivotal importance in the scenes of Ragnar's death and at the centre of attention during his own execution through the blood eagle torture inflicted by Ragnar's sons in revenge for the death of their father.[13] In an interview on his character King Aelle in September 2017, Kaye contested the assessment of this antagonist as a villain[14] - an assessment that had already been subject to disputes between parts of the audience.
In April and May 2018, Kaye came back to the small screen in the UK in his role as Pesca in the five part miniseries The Woman in White, a new BBC adaptation of Wilkie Collins' novel of the same name. A sneak peek review of British independent feature filmFor Love or Money: An Unromantic Comedy (released in the US on 15 March 2019) has emphasised his outstanding performance as the father of the main female character.[21]
Kaye's more recent projects include Amazon's unreleased but reviewed pilot for an unrealised adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower book series, starting with a prequel about the main character's youth based on book 4 Wizard and Glass[22] and Navot Papushado's new action thrillerGunpowder Milkshake. The former has started filming in Split on 13 May 2019,[23] the latter finished filming in August 2019 in Berlin and has been released in the US and several other countries in July 2021 and in the rest of the world in the following months.[24][25] Kaye's own Comedy Ink short film Acter has been released in April 2020. In 2021, he has returned to TV series projects by joining the cast of the Father Brown spin-off Sister Boniface Mysteries produced by BBC Studios and released on 8 February 2022 on BritBox in the US[26][27][28] as well as the first British original Disney+ series Wedding Season.[29][8] With his part in the Irish comedy film Apocalypse Clown, filmed in 2022, Kaye plays a leading role again.[30]
Personal life and social engagement
Kaye also has knowledge of French and Spanish.[8] As indicated by his first name he has Russian ancestry.[14][31] Kaye, who has two adult daughters, lives in London.[32]
Kaye supports the Our Disappearing Planet[33] and the Mayhew animal charities.[32] He also supports the campaign "Justice for Andrew Jones" which aims at bringing the killers of a teenager to court who was killed in 2003 in Liverpool on the street.[34]
In 2021, Kaye joined The Celebs to record a cover of The Beatles song "Let It Be", in support of the Mind charity and released on 3rd December 2021. Kaye was part of a choir of celebrities.[35][36][37]
