Ben Kingsley plays a pot-smoking psychiatrist in the new '90s-era comedy The Wackness – one of the distinguished actor's off-the-wall roles in recent years. Ben Kingsley plays a pot-smoking psychiatrist in the new '90s-era comedy The Wackness – one of the distinguished actor's off-the-wall roles in recent years. (Sony Pictures Classics)In one of the latter episodes of The Sopranos, mobsters-turned-filmmakers Christopher (Michael Imperioli) and Little Carmine (Ray Abruzzo) fly to L.A. to court Ben Kingsley for a role in their risible mafia-slasher flick Cleaver. Kingsley, playing himself, wisely turns them down. In real life, however, the knighted actor hasn’t been quite so fussy.

The last few years have seen Sir Ben, who won an Oscar for the title role in Gandhi (1982), attaching his prestigious name to all sorts of weird parts and wonky projects. Kingsley’s latest foray into the realm of quirk finds him playing a long-haired, bong-sucking psychiatrist who trades therapy sessions for weed in the 1990s-era comedy The Wackness. The movie, opening July 11, follows hard on the heels of The Love Guru, which featured him as a cross-eyed swami with the masturbatory moniker Tugginmypudha.

Kingsley, who got his start with Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, isn’t the first distinguished classical actor to go slumming. Anthony Hopkins has never shied from lending his magisterial presence to trash. Laurence Olivier excused his involvement in movies like Clash of the Titans by saying he needed the money to put his children through university. And Richard Burton, who made more stinkers than either of them, was equally frank: "The lure of the zeros," he admitted, "was simply too great."

Perhaps Kingsley – who also has kids, as well as three ex-wives – is similarly attracted by the big paycheques. Whatever the case, a closer look at his recent oddball oeuvre suggests that, consciously or unconsciously, Sir Ben seems to be parodying his better roles.

Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for his performance in the title role of Richard Attenborough's 1982 biopic Gandhi. Ben Kingsley won an Oscar for his performance in the title role of Richard Attenborough's 1982 biopic Gandhi. (Keystone/Getty Images) The spiritual teacher:

Gandhi (1982) Although he’d been playing small parts in film and TV for a decade, the Indo-British Kingsley (born Krishna Bhanji) was virtually unknown outside the U.K. when director Richard Attenborough cast him as Mahatma Gandhi in his epic biopic. Twenty-six years and some 50 feature films later, it’s still the first movie people think of when they hear the name Ben Kingsley.

The Love Guru (2008)

Maybe that’s why the actor agreed to do a cameo in this puerile (and penile) Mike Myers comedy. As the ludicrous Guru Tugginmypudha, Kingsley recalls another Ben – silent-era comic Ben Turpin – in his determination to milk visual impairment for cheap laughs. (That is, when he isn’t making his disciples slap one another with urine-soaked mops.)

Kingsley was terrifying as a vicious cockney gangster in Sexy Beast. Kingsley was terrifying as a vicious cockney gangster in Sexy Beast. (AFP/Getty Images) The sociopath:

Sexy Beast (2000) You could argue that Kingsley has spent much of his career showing us he could be the antithesis of Gandhi. Sexy Beast proved it definitively. In this nerve-shredding crime thriller, he was anything but non-violent as the terrifying Don Logan, a vicious, profanity-spewing cockney thug whose bullying rants reduce grown men to quivering jelly. (Whatever you do, don’t ask him to put out his cigarette.)

Suspect Zero (2004) After the triumph of Sexy Beast, Kingsley was suddenly the go-to guy for freaky villains. In this ham-fisted Se7en knock-off, he plays Benjamin O’Ryan, a serial killer who stalks other serial killers – an idea explored much more successfully by the Showtime television series Dexter a couple of years later. O’Ryan is actually a tad more cultivated than Don Logan: he does deft pencil sketches of his fellow killers’ atrocities and likes to carve pretty pictures on his victims’ torsos.

Kingsley, right, co-starred as Oskar Schindler's (Liam Neeson) Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern in the Oscar-winning Schindler's List. Kingsley, right, co-starred as Oskar Schindler's (Liam Neeson) Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern in the Oscar-winning Schindler's List. (Touchstone Pictures) The businessman:

Schindler’s List (1993)

He got less critical attention than co-stars Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes, but Kingsley was no less superb in Steven Spielberg’s shattering Holocaust drama. He portrayed Oskar Schindler’s real-life business partner, Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern, who helped him outwit the Nazis and save Polish Jews from the death camps.

A Sound of Thunder (2005) In this sci-fi thriller, an inept inflation of a famous Ray Bradbury short story, Kingsley plays a very different businessman – an opportunistic tycoon of the near future who wreaks havoc on the evolutionary process when he sells time-travel safari packages to the Jurassic period. The bullet-headed actor has donned many a wig in his career, but his hairpiece in this movie is a beaut – a snowy, ceiling-scraping pompadour worthy of the late Porter Wagoner. It almost steals the show from the flying ape lizards.

Kingsley, left, played chess tutor Bruce Pandolfini in Searching for Bobby Fischer. Kingsley, left, played chess tutor Bruce Pandolfini in Searching for Bobby Fischer. (Paramount Pictures) The mentor:

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) One of the best entries in that admittedly skimpy genre, the chess movie. Kingsley brought a kind of Zen egotism to his role as chess tutor Bruce Pandolfini, who tries to instill Fischer’s killer instinct in Max Pomeranc’s eight-year-old prodigy.

The Last Legion (2007) Alec Guinness had Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ian McKellen has Gandalf and Ben Kingsley’s got… Ambrosinus! What, you’ve never heard of him? That’s probably because this lumpy, CGI-laden historical fantasy was such a pale shadow of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings that it vanished from memory the minute you stepped out of the theatre. A grey-bearded Kingsley phones it in as a mystical warrior-turned-wise man who advises Thomas Sangster’s preteen Roman emperor.

Kingsley, right, starred opposite Jennifer Connolly as a proud Iranian immigrant in House of Sand and Fog. Kingsley, right, starred opposite Jennifer Connolly as a proud Iranian immigrant in House of Sand and Fog. (Dreamworks Pictures) The patriarch:

House of Sand and Fog (2003) Kingsley received another well-deserved Oscar nomination (his third) for his performance in this dark, emotionally wrenching drama. He stars as Massoud Behrani, the proud paterfamilias of an immigrant Iranian family who ends up in a bitter struggle with a messed-up young woman (Jennifer Connelly) over the possession of a modest California home.

BloodRayne (2006) Ah, the joys of a roller-coaster acting career: one year, you’re up for an Oscar; the next, they’re touting you for a Razzie. Kingsley got his first Golden Raspberry nomination for his role as the title character's vampire father in this horror fantasy inspired by a video game. Given that the director was the much-despised Uwe Boll and the cast included such has-beens as Michael Madsen and Meat Loaf, could Kingsley have expected anything less?

Kingsley, left, was a memorable Fagin in the Roman Polanski film of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. Kingsley, left, was a memorable Fagin in the Roman Polanski film of Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. (Columbia Tristar) The classic role:

Silas Marner (1985), Twelfth Night (1996), Oliver Twist (2005)

When called on to tackle a beloved literary character, Kingsley seldom disappoints. He was equally excellent as Shakespeare’s Feste in Twelfth Night, Dickens’s Fagin in Oliver Twist and George Eliot’s reformed miser in a 1980s television adaptation of Silas Marner.

Thunderbirds (2004)

Surely, Sir Ben’s greatest challenge was to embody the mysterious villain in this live-action version of the "classic" 1960s marionette series. As The Hood, who makes trouble for the squeaky-clean pilots of International Rescue, Kingsley bravely risked bad puns about "wooden" acting and the scrutiny of demanding Thunderbirds fans. He pulled it off rather well, garnering kudos for his hissability and his cool kimono.

The Wackness opens July 11.

Martin Morrow writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.