The stars who have taken action to stop audiences using smartphones

When an audience member's phone went off in the middle of Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig's Broadway play A Steady Rain in 2009 the guilty party tried to keep a low profile and let it ring. The Wolverine star was having none of it, and keeping his character's Chicago accent he snapped, "You wanna get that? Grab it. I don't care, grab it. Grab your phone, it doesn't matter." (Credit: AP)

When Benedict Cumberbatch appeared in Hamlet at the Barbican Theatre in London in 2015, he made an impassioned plea to fans at the stage door, telling them: "I can see cameras in the auditorium. It may not be any of you here but it's blindingly obvious. It's mortifying and there's nothing that's less supportive or enjoyable as an actor on stage experiencing that. What I really want to do is try and enlist you. I don't use social media and I'd really appreciate it if you did tweet, blog, hashtag the s*** out of this one for me." (Credit: PA Images via Getty Images)

Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald Broadway play Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune opens with a graphic sex scene, so McDonald fumed it was "not cool" when she noticed someone snapping a picture during the show this month (Credit: Walter McBride/Getty Images)

Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda improvised some new lyrics to one of the musical's songs when he spotted someone using their phone, singing "Lady filming in the fourth row, please stop it." (Credit: Invision/AP)

Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence is so devoted to her craft she is not happy with any audience looking at their phones when she is holding court. During a press conference backstage at the Golden Globes in 2016 she told a reporter “You can’t live your whole life behind your phone, bro. You gotta live in the now.” (Credit: Invision/AP)

Kevin Spacey - who last week saw criminal charges of indecent assault and battery against him dropped - appeared in numerous productions at London's Old Vic Theatre during his 10 year reign as artistic director. During the opening night of one man show Clarence Darrow in 2014, when a mobile phone went off in the audience he snapped, "If you don't answer that, I will!" (Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)

The late Richard Griffiths sparked debate in 2005 when he stopped a performance of his West End play Heroes and came out of character to ask a woman to turn her mobile phone off - after it went off for the third time in a row (Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)

Comedian Stewart Lee is very vocal about his hatred of seeing audience members using their mobile phones and has even threatened to destroy them if he spots them, saying, "because the phones light up when you use them, I can see you." He once snatched a phone from one audience member and stuffed it down his trousers (Credit: Getty Images)

Imelda Staunton wants to go one step further than banning smartphones - she wants to stop theatre audiences being allowed snacks during performances. She said: “I don’t know why people can’t engage in just one thing. I don’t understand this obsession with having to eat or drink something at every moment of the day.” (Credit: Dave Benett/Getty Images for The Old Vic Theatre)

Keira Knightley was confronted with more than just a digital distraction on stage. During the curtain call of her Broadway debut in Therese Raquin at the Studio 54 Theatre in 2015 a man ran on stage with a bunch of flowers and then propsed marriage to the actress, before being removed by security (Credit: FilmMagic/Getty Images)