Henry Cavill - Actors, Birthday and Family

Henry Cavill was born on 5th May 1983 to Colin Richard Cavill who hails from Chester, England, and Marianne Dalgliesh, who is Part-Irish, Part-English, and Part-Scottish. His father worked as a stockbroker while his mother was a housewife. He is the second youngest among five brothers.

He received his private education from ‘St Michael’s Preparatory School’ before heading off to Buckinghamshire, England to attend a boarding school by the name of ‘Stowe School’.

He started showing interest in acting from an early age and participated in school drama renditions of ‘Grease’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ but acting was never his first choice of career.

As a young man Cavill harbored the desire of joining the military and serving his country. In his years at Stowe School, he participated in the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) training program. He also showed an inclination toward sports, especially rugby, but gave up playing the sport due to an injury.

Henry Cavill’s acting career began when he was 17. He was discovered in a school play and cast for the role of Albert Mondego in the movie ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ (2002). He went on to appear in the film ‘Laguna’ (2001) and the TV series ‘The Inspector Lynley Mysteries’ and ‘Goodbye, Mr Chips’ (2002), a TV film.

Good roles started coming his way when he was in his early 20s. During this time he starred in movies like ‘I Capture the Castle’ (2003), ‘Hellraiser: Hellworld’ (2005), ‘Red Riding Hood’ (2006), ‘Tristan & Isolde’ (2006) and a cameo in ‘Stardust’ (2007).

In 2007, Henry Cavill essayed the role of Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk in the mega-hit TV series ‘The Tudors’. The series went on to be nominated for a Golden Globe (2007) and won an Emmy Award (2008).

After portraying not-so-glamorous roles in movies like ‘Blood Creek’ (2006) and ‘Whatever Works’ (2009), it was finally announced in January 2011 that Henry Cavill had been signed on to play the role of ‘Superman’ in the upcoming Superman film ‘Man of Steel’ (2013).

The movie was a massive success and became the highest grossing Superman movie of all time. Henry Cavill, being British by birth, became the first non-American Superman and the first to be signed up for more than a single film post Christopher Reeves.

He formed his own British production house by the name of Promethean Productions with his brother Charlie in 2014. He starred in ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ (2015), and the DC crossover with Batman and Wonder Woman, ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (2016).

Henry Cavill has also been signed on to reprise the role of Superman in two ‘Justice League’ movies slated to appear on the big screen in the coming months. He is also working on an undisclosed solo Superman movie

Henry Cavill’s major works include his portrayal of The First Duke of Suffolk in the TV series ‘The Tudors’ (2007) and playing the role of Superman in ‘The Man Of Steel’ (2013) in which his performance was critically acclaimed. ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ which released in 2016, became his personal highest grosser till date.

Henry Cavill won the MTV Movie Award for Best Hero for ‘Man of Steel’ in 2014 for his portrayal of the character of Clark Kent/Superman. He was nominated for the same role by Teen Choice Awards, Critics Choice Awards, and NewNowNext Awards.

He was named ‘The Sexiest Man of 2013’ by ‘Glamour’ magazine. He was ranked second in a 2013 ‘World’s Sexiest Men’ poll by ‘Attitude’.

Henry Cavill was raised with four brothers. Consequently, competition was high among the boys. All of them were into fitness and sport activities. All the boys, including Henry, enjoyed acting but none had ever considered it as a full-time career option.

His family has a strong military connection. His father, in his pre-stockbroker days, served in the Navy while his two elder brothers have served in the military too. His eldest sibling Piers is an ex-army officer while another brother Nick is in the Royal Marines in the position of a major.

Henry has never been married although at one point he did get engaged to Ellen Whitaker, in May 2011. This engagement was broken off. In August 2012 Henry started dating Gina Carano but even this relationship didn’t last long. His next girlfriend was Kaley Cuoco whom he dated for a couple of weeks and finally Tara King, whom he split from in 2016.

Henry Cavill has a deep interest in ancient history, especially pertaining to that of Egypt, Greece and Ancient Rome.

His favourite actor is Russell Crowe and his favourite movie is ‘Gladiator’ starring Crowe, who co-incidentally also essayed the role of Cavill’s character Superman’s father Jor-El in the movie ‘Man of Steel’ (2013).

He would like to portray the character of Alexander the Great on the big screen which he admits is his dream role.

He can speak a number of languages like French, German, Italian, and English.

Stephanie Meyer, the author of ‘The Twilight’ series called him the perfect Edward Cullen. However he lost out to Robert Pattinson for the role because he was too old to play the character. Conversely, he lost out on playing James Bond to Daniel Craig because he was too young for that role!

He almost lost out on the role of Superman for ‘Man of Steel’ as he was too busy playing World of Warcraft! When asked by Zack Snyder on why he didn’t receive the call, he jokingly stated that he was busy saving someone’s life! He is a self-proclaimed video game aficionado.

Henry Cavill has an estimated net worth of $20 million.