- Out of all working actors in Hollywood, he holds the record for the most onscreen character deaths, 47 in total.
- He was not the first choice for the role of Gilbert Kane in Alien (1979). He was brought in on the second day of filming after Jon Finch, the original actor cast for the role, was diagnosed with a severe case of diabetes and taken to hospital.
- An early passion for acting was triggered when he saw Alec Guinness play Fagin in the film Oliver Twist (1948).
- He was friends with the late John Entwistle, bassist and founding member of The Who. He had written a poem about him and read it out loud at his memorial October 24, 2002.
- He was cast as the Doctor in Doctor Who (2005) when Christopher Eccleston declined to reprise the role for the Time War episodes. To avoid throwing off the numbering of subsequent Doctors (Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor, etc.), his version was designated the War Doctor. He was the first Oscar-nominated actor to play the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963) or Doctor Who (2005). At age 73, he also became the oldest actor to play a version of the Doctor on television, the first CBE to play the Doctor on television, and in 2015, he became the only actor to have played the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) or Doctor Who (2005) to have been conferred with a knighthood.
- Once an alcoholic, he gave up smoking and drinking after his fourth marriage (2005).
- The make-up he wore to play The Elephant Man (1980) also inspired the appearance of Gothmog in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
- He did the film History of the World: Part I (1981) because he had just gotten through doing two seriously dramatic films, The Elephant Man (1980) and Heaven's Gate (1980), and said that he wanted to have fun and do a comedy.
- He trained to become a painter at Grimsby Art School in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England.
- He resided with Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot from 1967 until 1983, when she was killed in a riding accident in Oxfordshire. They were riding together when he witnessed the accident, in which she was thrown from her horse and landed on her head on the road.
- He was awarded Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 Queen's New Years Honours List for his services to drama. He resided in Cromer, Norfolk, England.
- He was offered the role of Mohandas K. Gandhi in Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi (1982), but declined the offer. He felt that by the 1980s it had become inappropriate for a Caucasian European to portray a person of Asian descent. The role instead became a big break for another British classical actor, Ben Kingsley, who was of genuine Indian descent on his father's side.
- Hurt's elder sister became a school teacher in Australia. His brother, the eldest of the three siblings, converted to Roman Catholicism and became a monk, Brother Anselm, first at Downside (a Benedictine school in England) and later at Glenstal Abbey (County Limerick, Ireland), where he remains as of 2019, although, following allegations of abuse, he is banned from interacting with students and lives retired.
- He provided the voice of Aragorn in Ralph Bakshi's film The Lord of the Rings (1978). Though not a financial success, it sparked enough interest in Tolkien's works that the BBC decided to air its own adaptation, and it was also what inspired Peter Jackson to make his live-action films. Both subsequent adaptations featured Ian Holm, with whom Hurt appeared in Alien (1979).
- He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2004 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to Drama.
- Hated the idea of being regarded as "a star." John Hurt always claimed that he had no idea what stardom meant.
- As Winston Smith in 1984 (1984), he portrayed a victim of a totalitarian society, with Big Brother as its head. In V for Vendetta (2005), he portrayed the Big Brother-type leader Chancellor Sutler.
- Had two sons with Jo Dalton: Nicolas Hurt and Alexander Hurt.
- Had appeared in three films that were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: A Man for All Seasons (1966), Midnight Express (1978) and The Elephant Man (1980). The only one to win was A Man for All Seasons (1966).
- His sister died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) while he was filming The Proposition (2005).
- On January 16, 2006, he received an honorary degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Hull, Yorkshire.
- He was offered the role of Dr. Wellington Yueh in David Lynch's Dune (1984), which went to Dean Stockwell.
- When his performance as John Merrick in The Elephant Man (1980) was premiered in October 1980, David Bowie was playing the same role on Broadway.
- Hurt was the 22nd Harry Potter film series cast member to die.
- He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, England; he became an Associate Member.
- He was the voice of Aragron in The Lord of the Rings (1978), which featured Norman Bird as Bilbo, Christopher Guard as Frodo, and William Squire as Gandalf. In other films, Hurt went on to work with two other Gandalfs, Bilbos and Frodos, and one other Sam Gamgee. Watership Down (1978) featured Michael Hordern, who played Gandalf for the BBC Radio adaptation. The Black Cauldron (1985) featured John Huston, who played Gandalf in The Hobbit (1977). Scandal (1989) featured Ian McKellen, who played the role in Peter Jackson's films. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), he appears with Bill Nighy, who played Sam in the BBC Radio version. In The Oxford Murders (2008), he works with Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in Peter Jackson's films. In Pride (2004), he works with Martin Freeman, who played Bilbo in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). In Alien (1979), he works with Ian Holm, who played Frodo on the radio, and Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001).
- He was considered for the role of Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978), which went to Donald Pleasence.
- He was the youngest of three children of Arnold Herbert Hurt and Phyllis Massey. His father was vicar of Shirebrook, Derbyshire and Vicar of St. John's parish in Sunderland, County Durham. His mother opened a school at his father's vicarage when he was five.
- John Hurt spent so long waiting around for something to do in Heavens Gate that he made The Elephant Man (1980), then came back to shoot more scenes for for Heavens Gate.
- He has appeared in one film that has been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Alien (1979).
- He was awarded the 2012 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Solo Performance for "Krapp's Last Tape", in a Gate Theatre Dublin production at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles, California.
- Had two roles in common with Sylvester McCoy: (1) Hurt played the Fool in King Lear (1983) while McCoy played him in King Lear (2008) and (2) McCoy played the Seventh Doctor in Doctor Who (1963) and Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) while Hurt played the War Doctor in Doctor Who (2005).
- He played Lord Percival Graves in King Ralph (1991), which was loosely based on Emlyn Williams' novel "Headlong" (1980). Both Williams and Hurt played the Roman Emperor Caligula in adaptations of Robert Graves' novel "I, Claudius" (1934): Williams in the unfinished film I, Claudius (1937) and Hurt in I, Claudius (1976) between the ages of 16 (in 29 AD) and 28 (in 41 AD). Hurt's portrayal of Caligula is vastly considered an unparalleled interpretation of the role of all times, which, among others, was highly praised by Marlon Brando in his autobiography too, with whom Hurt also collaborated in the unfinished short comedy film Divine Rapture (1995).
- He worked with two Boromirs. In Ralph Bakshi's film The Lord of the Rings (1978), he provided the voice of "Aragorn", opposite Michael Graham Cox (as "Boromir") who went on to reprise the role for BBC radio. He later appeared in The Field (1990) with Sean Bean, who played the role in Peter Jackson's adaptation.
- In June 2016, Sir John, along with Helena Bonham Carter, Idris Elba, Keira Knightley and Cara Delevingne, announced his support for the vote to remain in the European Union (EU) for the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.
- He shared a role, apart from Aragorn, with three cast members of Peter Jackson's Middle-Earth films. In Immortals (2011) he plays the older version of Zeus, who is played as a young man by Luke Evans. In Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), Zeus is played by Sean Bean.
- There is a song by Alt-J: "The Gospel of John Hurt".
- When he appeared as the War Doctor in the 50th anniversary special, he was not the first actor to play an alternative incarnation of the Doctor. Michael Jayston had played the Valeyard in the original series, Doctor Who (1963), in 1986, who was an amalgamation of the Doctor's darker sides from between his twelfth and final incarnations.
- Both he and William Hartnell, one of his predecessors as the Doctor, appeared in film adaptations of Graham Greene's 1938 novel "Brighton Rock": Hartnell played Dallow in Brighton Rock (1948) while Hurt played Phil Corkery in Brighton Rock (2010).
- He won the role of Kane in Alien (1979) following two incidents. First, he was banned from South Africa, where he was set to film Zulu Dawn (1979). This was because the country mistook him for John Heard, who strongly opposed apartheid (Hurt later admitted that he was also opposed to it, but he was lucky that he didn't get blacklisted). Second, Jon Finch, who was cast as Kane to replace hurt, got seriously ill from diabetes on the first day of filming. Director Ridley Scott then drove to Hurt's house and pitched him the script over the weekend. The next Monday, Hurt arrived on the set with very little sleep.
- He pulled out of a West End version of "The Entertainer" due to an intestinal complaint.
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