Ben Kingsley associated with the Mob

OSCAR winner Sir Ben Kingsley is to star in the final series of The Sopranos - as himself. The 62-year-old was revealing nothing about the plot of the US Mafia series yesterday, only telling the BBC that the cast were a pleasure to work with.

James Gandolfini, who plays the head of the New Jersey mob family, was also keeping very quiet about the series. He told reporters: "I don't know what's going to happen and I don't want to know." But the show's creator David Chase told a US paper: "Ben Kingsley will star and he plays Ben Kingsley."

Yorkshire born Kingsley played English gangster Don Logan in the critically acclaimed movie Sexy Beast in 2001. He also starred as mobster Meyer Lanksy in the children's spoof gangster film Bugsy in 1991. He won a Best Actor Oscar for playing Ghandi in the 1982 film directed by Richard Attenborough.