Sir Ben Kingsley Gets Tested on Film Sets

Sir Ben Kingsley has worked with his share of lovely leading

ladies and his next co-star isn’t anyone to sneeze at either. Spanish sexpot

Penelope Cruz plays his love interest in the upcoming Elegy, based on Phillip

Roth’s The Dying Animal, and the 63-year-old tells OK! he couldn’t imagine a

better co-star.

“She’s wonderful to work with, very intelligent, very

beautiful, very passionate, great timing, great sense of humor and wit,”

he says.

So was he at all nervous about working with the 33-year-old

beauty? Yes, but not that he minds.

“I think a man always feels like he’s being tested, that’s only

natural, everyone tests a man, in whatever context,” Sir Ben tells OK!. “Whether

it’s the workplace, like Penelope and I, or in a relationship, so I think we’re

always being tested by the female sex, and that’s a good thing.”

He was tested in a different way in The Love Guru, a comedy

co-starring Mike Myers, Justin Timberlake and Jessica Alba. Mike kept things so

light on set that the Oscar winner is worried the funniest scenes weren’t

caught on camera.

“When Mike Myers is working it's rather like being a guest

of Charlie

Chaplin in that he has very affectionate firm control,” Sir

Ben says. “Hopefully most of the funny parts are happening in front of the

lense. That’s hardest thing.”

For more on Sir Ben, pick up the latest issue of OK!, on

newsstands now!