​Clive Standen is was born on a British Army base in Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland, and at the age of two he had moved across the water to Leicestershire in the East Midlands. He went to school at King Edward VII School (Melton Mowbray) followed by a performing arts course at Melton Mowbray College.

His first experience of stunts and sword fighting was at the tender age of 12 when Standen got his first job working in a professional stunt team in Nottingham learning to Ride, Joust and sword fight..His sword fighting skills are seamless (he is left-handed but learned to fight with his right hand in his early years making him uniquely ambidextrous in the craft).