Clive Owen
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Clive Owen trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Clive Owen has spent four decades moving between British television, Hollywood thrillers and the stage. He is the rare leading man equally convincing as a romantic rival in Closer, a weary hero in Children of Men and a self-destructive surgeon in The Knick. This quiz walks through his filmography role by role: the early dramas that made his name at home, the run of films in the 2000s that made him a star abroad, the cameos and oddities, and the miniseries of recent years. Expect questions on co-stars, directors, characters and the stories behind the productions, along with a few on his life away from the set. It is written for film fans who know the big titles and want to see how far their memory goes. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A 2005 Sky News poll made Clive Owen the public's pick for James Bond; who got the role instead?
Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig was announced as the new 007 in the very month the poll came out. Owen later said he was never offered the part, or even approached about it.
Q 02In Shoot 'Em Up, Clive Owen's gunslinging drifter is constantly eating which vegetable?
Carrots
Carrots are his snack and, in one scene, his weapon against a hitman. Critics compared the hero and Paul Giamatti's villain to Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.
Q 03A full-size copy of which New York museum was built in Germany for Clive Owen's The International?
The Guggenheim
The Guggenheim was copied at full size, 118 feet wide, for the film's central gunfight. Owen called it one of the most exquisitely executed sequences he had been involved in.
Q 04Which US president did Clive Owen play in the 2021 series Impeachment: American Crime Story?
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton was Owen's role, with Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky herself signed on as a co-producer of the season.
Q 05Clive Owen met his future wife, Sarah-Jane Fenton, when both acted in which Shakespeare play?
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet brought them together at the Young Vic in London in 1988, where both were in the cast. They began dating soon afterwards and married in March 1995.
Q 06Which sitcom star directed Clive Owen in Trust, a 2010 drama about an online predator?
David Schwimmer
David Schwimmer, Ross in Friends, drew on 14 years of involvement with The Rape Foundation. He always wanted the teenage victim to be played by a real 14-year-old.
Q 07Clive Owen played the nameless Driver in The Hire, online short films made by which carmaker?
BMW
BMW paid for eight shorts by directors such as Guy Ritchie, John Woo and Tony Scott, with Madonna among the passengers. They introduced Owen to North American audiences in 2001.
Q 08Clive Owen learned to ride a horse to play which title character in a 2004 Antoine Fuqua epic?
King Arthur
King Arthur is reimagined in the film as a Roman officer rather than a medieval knight. Keira Knightley plays Guinevere and Ioan Gruffudd is Lancelot.
Q 09Clive Owen played Dan in Closer on stage in 1997; which actor took the role in the 2004 film?
Jude Law
Jude Law played Dan on screen, while Owen switched to the dermatologist Larry. The swap brought Owen a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and an Oscar nomination.
Q 10Which director talked a reluctant Clive Owen into playing the masked bank robber in Inside Man?
Spike Lee
Spike Lee won him over after Owen nearly turned the part down, worried by a disguise of hood, mask and sunglasses. The script was revised to add scenes that showed his face.
Q 11Clive Owen plays Theo Faron in Children of Men, set in a 2027 Britain facing which crisis?
Human infertility
Human infertility has lasted two decades when the story begins, leaving civilisation on the brink of collapse. Owen made uncredited contributions to the Oscar-nominated screenplay.
Q 12Clive Owen earned his first Emmy nomination playing which novelist opposite Nicole Kidman?
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was the part, with Nicole Kidman as the journalist Martha Gellhorn, who became his wife. The 2012 HBO film had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Q 13Clive Owen plays antihero Dwight McCarthy in which 2005 film based on Frank Miller's comics?
Sin City
Q 21Clive Owen broke through in America as a writer drawn into a casino robbery in which 1998 film?
Croupier
Croupier won a strong following among North American critics and launched Owen's career there. Its director, Mike Hodges, had made his debut with the crime drama Get Carter.
Q 22Which ITV drama made Clive Owen a star in Britain in 1990, casting him as a likeable conman?
Chancer
Chancer starred Owen as Stephen Crane, a rogue who sets out to save an ailing car firm. Its theme music was written by Jan Hammer, the composer of the Miami Vice soundtrack.
Q 23Clive Owen trained at which London drama school before performing Shakespeare at the Young Vic?
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Sin City earned Owen and Rosario Dawson an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Kiss. Robert Rodriguez directed it alongside Frank Miller, who created the comics.
Q 14Clive Owen plays the Professor, an assassin sent to kill an amnesiac agent, in which 2002 thriller?
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Identity pits him against Matt Damon's hero, who mortally wounds him. Dying, the Professor reveals that both men are tied to the same Treadstone programme.
Q 15Clive Owen played which explorer opposite Cate Blanchett's queen in Elizabeth: The Golden Age?
Sir Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh enthrals the queen with tales of the New World, then begins a secret affair with her favourite lady-in-waiting. She has him imprisoned for it.
Q 16Clive Owen spoofed his James Bond rumours as Agent 006 in the 2006 remake of which comedy?
The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther gave him an uncredited turn as Nigel Boswell, an MI6 man who foils a casino robbery. Steve Martin's Inspector Clouseau mistakenly receives the credit.
Q 17Which actress played Lucinda Harris opposite Clive Owen's cheating ad executive in Derailed?
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston plays the woman Owen's married character meets on a commuter train. Derailed was the first film The Weinstein Company released in the United States.
Q 18In The Knick, Clive Owen's surgeon John Thackery regularly injects himself with which drug?
Cocaine
Cocaine fuels Thackery by day, and he spends his nights in a Chinatown opium den. The character is partly based on the real surgeon William Stewart Halsted.
Q 19Clive Owen narrated a 2012 fly-on-the-wall documentary about which football club, his lifelong team?
Liverpool
Liverpool is the club he follows, even though he was born in Coventry. The series Being: Liverpool tracked the squad on a pre-season tour of North America.
Q 20Clive Owen shared a Screen Actors Guild cast award for which Robert Altman country-house mystery?
Gosford Park
Gosford Park cast Owen as the valet Robert Parks, who was raised in an orphanage. Its writer, Julian Fellowes, went on to create Downton Abbey, first planned as a spin-off.
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art training came only after a long, fruitless search for work changed his mind. Owen had at first been opposed to drama school altogether.
Q 24Which actor plays Jasper, the former cartoonist who shelters Clive Owen's Theo in Children of Men?
Michael Caine
Michael Caine based Jasper on his friend John Lennon. It was the first time he had portrayed a character who smoked cannabis.
Q 25Clive Owen played which Dashiell Hammett detective, retired to 1960s France, in a 2024 miniseries?
Sam Spade
Sam Spade has swapped San Francisco for the quiet French town of Bozouls by 1963. The murder of six nuns at the local convent brings his peaceful life to an end.
Q 26Which actor plays hostage negotiator Keith Frazier opposite Clive Owen's bank robber in Inside Man?
Denzel Washington
Denzel Washington plays the New York detective. A sequel was announced in 2006, with both leads later confirmed to return, but the plans were cancelled in 2011.
Q 27Clive Owen's villain in Gemini Man sends a young clone to kill an assassin played by which star?
Will Smith
Will Smith plays both the retiring sniper and his clone, with digital de-ageing for the younger one. The project had spent nearly twenty years in development.
Q 28Clive Owen plays the usurping Claudius in Ophelia, a 2018 retelling of which Shakespeare tragedy?
Hamlet
Hamlet is retold from Ophelia's point of view, with the dialogue in modern English. The film, starring Daisy Ridley, is based on a 2006 novel by Lisa Klein.
Q 29Which actress starred opposite Clive Owen in Beyond Borders, a 2003 romance about aid workers?
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie was by then a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN refugee agency, much like her character. She published a book of journals from her travels as the film came out.
Q 30Which film director made The Knick, the hospital drama starring Clive Owen as surgeon John Thackery?
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh directed all ten episodes of the first season. Thackery's death in the season two finale was planned from the beginning, and Owen had only a two-year contract.