Kristin Scott Thomas

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)

Kristin A. Scott Thomas,^[1] OBE (born 24 May 1960) is an English actress. She is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe- and BAFTA-nominee, and a winner of the Screen Actors Guild Award, the Laurence Olivier Award and the NBR Award.

Biography

Early life

Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was raised in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying Scott Thomas's father.^[2] Her father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, was a pilot for the British Royal Navy who died in a flying accident in 1964.^[3][4][5] She is the older sister of actress Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (who was Black Rod in the House of Lords), and a more distant grand niece of Capt. Robert F. Scott, the ill-fated explorer who lost the race to the South Pole. Her last name is an amalgam of the last names of those two families.

Scott Thomas's childhood home was Dorset, England. Her mother remarried to another Royal Navy pilot, who also died in a flying accident six years after the death of her father. Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and St Antony's Leweston School for Girls, in Dorset, and on graduation began training to be a drama teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama. On being told she would never be a good enough actress, she left at the age of 19 to work as an au pair in Paris.^[6] Speaking French fluently, she studied acting at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre (ENSATT) in Paris, and on graduation was cast opposite pop star Prince as the French girl in the film Under the Cherry Moon.

Career

Thomas is perhaps best known for her central role as an unfaithful wife in the English Patient, one of the biggest screen hits of 1996. She has also appeared in on TV (in the 2003 Book Clubbin episode of Absolutely Fabulous she played a character called Plum Berkeley) and in the theatre.

She was awarded an OBE in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours list, and was also awarded the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 2005.

Scott Thomas is a frequent subject on the British motoring programme Top Gear. She was used as a standard of reference for "good taste", such as during the "Cool Wall" segment of the programme, presenter Jeremy Clarkson would rate a car's coolness based mostly on what he thinks Scott Thomas's level of distaste for it would be. She made her long-awaited appearance as the "Star In A Reasonably Priced Car" on the episode broadcast on February 25, 2007. On this episode, amid excessive kow-towing from Clarkson and joking from Richard Hammond and James May because Clarkson has shown much affection for her in the past, she proceeded to rubbish most of the decisions Clarkson had made over the past years of the Cool Wall. She also ridiculed the car that he had just ordered, a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. She completed her lap in a time of 1.54, placing her just above Phillip Glenister although still near the bottom of the leaderboard.

In early 2007 she played Arkadina in a London production of Chekhov's The Seagull, for which she won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress on the 9th of March, 2008.^[7] She will reprise the role in New York in September 2008.^[8]

In 2006, she played the lead role of Juliette, in French, in Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Tell No One, by French director Philippe Claudel.

Personal life

Scott Thomas is separated from French gynaecologist François Olivennes by whom she has three children: Hannah (born in 1988), Joseph (born 1991), and Georges (born 2000). They had been together 17 years.

The separation was reportedly precipitated by her romantic involvement with English actor Tobias Menzies (nearly 14 years her junior), whom she met while appearing in Chekhov's play Three Sisters in London's West End.^[9] Menzies was also her co-star in a London production of Pirandello's As You Desire Me in [2006].^[10]

Her relationship with Menzies now over, she lives in Paris with her two younger children, and counts Charlotte Rampling, Gérard Depardieu, Jane Birkin^[11] and her English Patient co-stars Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes^[12] among her closest friends.

Awards and nominations

• 1994 – BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Four Weddings and a Funeral (won)
• 1996 – BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role - The English Patient (nominated)
• 1996 – Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role - The English Patient (nominated)
• 2008 - Laurence Olivier Awards Best Actress - The Seagull (won)

Filmography

• Under the Cherry Moon (1986) ... Mary Sharon
• A Handful of Dust (1988) ... Brenda Last
• Bitter Moon (1992) ... Fiona
• Un été inoubliable (1994) ... Marie-Thérèse Von Debretsy
• Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) ... Fiona
• Le Confessional (1994) ... Alfred Hitchcock's assistant
• Richard III (1995) ... Lady Anne
• Angels & Insects (1995) ... Matty Crompton
• Microcosmos (1996) ... Narrator
• The English Patient (1996) ... Katharine Clifton
• Mission: Impossible (1996) ... Sarah Davies
• Love & Confusions (Amour et confusions) (1997) ... Sarah
• The Revengers' Comedies (1997) ... Imogen Staxton-Billing
• The Horse Whisperer (1998)... Annie MacLean
• Random Hearts (1999) ... Kay Chandler
• Life as a House (2001) ... Robin Monroe
• Up at the Villa (2000) ... Mary Panton
• Play (2000) ... First Woman
• Gosford Park (2001).... Sylvia McCordle
• Small Cuts (Petites coupures) (2003) ... Béatrice
• Arsène Lupin (2004) ... Joséphine, comtesse de Cagliostro
• Man to Man (2005) ... Elena Van Den Ende
• Keeping Mum (2005) ... Gloria Goodfellow
• Tell No One (2007) ... Hélène Perkins
• The Valet (2007) ... Christine Levasseur
• The Walker (2007) ... Lynn Lockner
• The Golden Compass (2007) (voice) ... Stelmaria
• I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime) (2008) ... Juliette
• The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) ... Lady Elizabeth Boleyn
• Largo Winch (2008) ... Ann Fergusson
• Easy Virtue (2009) ... Mrs. Whittaker
• Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) ... TBA

Theatre

• La Lune déclinante sur 4 ou 5 personnes qui dansent (1983, Festival de Semur en Auxois)
• Terre étrangère (1984, Théâtre des Amandiers de Nanterre)
• Naïves Hirondelles (1984, Festival d'Avignon)
• Yes, peut-être (1985, in a field in Burgundy)
• Bérénice (2001, Festival de Perpignan and Festival d'Avignon + national tour)
• Three Sisters (2003, Playhouse Theatre, London) ... Masha
• As You Desire Me (2005-06, Playhouse Theatre, London) ... Elma
• The Seagull (2007, Royal Court Theatre, London) ... Arkadina

References

External links

• Kristin Scott Thomas at the Internet Movie Database
• Ryan Gilbey, "The three stages of Kristin", interview, The Guardian, 27 July 2007
• Mark Anstead, "Kristin Scott Thomas: The Ice Maiden thaws", interview, Daily Mail, 8 June 2007
• Louise France, "I'm 47. Unlike most actresses I don't lie about my age" Interview, The Guardian, 3 February 2008

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia