Alfred Molina's Real Name: Alfred Molina

Quick answer: Alfred Molina is publicly known by his own name, and no separate birth name is firmly documented. The Library of Congress files him as "Molina, Alfred, 1953-" and lists "Alfredo Molina" as a variant form. He was born May 24, 1953, in London to a Spanish father and an Italian mother. He is known for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Prick Up Your Ears, Frida, and Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 (LOC; Guardian).

Real name and early life

In a 2016 Guardian interview, Molina said his father, Esteban, was Spanish and his mother, Giovanna, Italian. He grew up in Notting Hill, west London, then a working-class immigrant neighborhood, and attended a Roman Catholic secondary modern school. He said his father fought in the Spanish Civil War and World War II and then worked hard as a waiter. His parents divorced when he was 12.

On the podcast Bullseye, Molina said that growing up in 1950s and '60s England he "desperately" wanted to feel English but was often reminded that his family were outsiders. A new English teacher, Martyn Corbett, started a drama club and became his mentor. After Molina was turned down for a drama school grant, Corbett's letter won him another chance. In the 1970s he was a spear carrier at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Career highlights

Molina's first big film part was Satipo, the guide who betrays Indiana Jones at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). In Stephen Frears's Prick Up Your Ears (1987) he played Kenneth Halliwell opposite Gary Oldman's Joe Orton. The Guardian notes that his career took off in the 1990s with Enchanted April and Anna Karenina, followed by Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Chocolat, and Frida.

He played Dr. Otto Octavius in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and returned to the role in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). Other credits include The Da Vinci Code, An Education, and Love Is Strange (2014), opposite John Lithgow, plus the role of director Robert Aldrich in the first season of Feud (2017). Bullseye counts more than 150 screen roles.

In 1986 he married actor Jill Gascoine, star of The Gentle Touch, and they moved to Los Angeles in the 1990s. He told the Guardian in 2015 that he had cared for her at home for four years after her Alzheimer's diagnosis. He has a daughter, Rachel, born in 1980.

Name notes for searchers

Alfred Molina is the name he has always worked under. "Alfredo" appears as a Library of Congress variant and in some fan references, but no primary record we found confirms it as his legal birth name, so we list it only as a variant.