Kristin Scott Thomas
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| Kristin Scott Thomas | |
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Scott Thomas at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
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| Born | Kristin A. Scott Thomas 24 May 1960 Redruth, Cornwall, England, UK |
| Citizenship | British, French |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Spouse(s) | François Olivennes (m. 1987–2005) |
| Children | 3 |
Since the 1980s, she has also worked in French cinema in films such as the thriller Tell No One and Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long. She has lived in France since she was 19, has brought up her three children in Paris, and says she considers herself more French than British.[2] She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 2005.
Contents
Early life
Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was brought up in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying Kristin's father,[3] Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, a pilot for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm who died in a flying accident when Kristin was five.[4][5] She is the elder sister of actress Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (who was a Black Rod in the House of Lords), and a more distant great-great-niece of Captain Scott, the ill-fated explorer who lost the race to the South Pole.Scott Thomas was brought up as a Roman Catholic.[6][7] Her childhood home was in Trent, 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 in Sherborne, Dorset, both independent schools. On leaving school she moved to Hampstead, London, and worked in a department store. She then 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.[8] Speaking French fluently, she studied acting at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre (ENSATT) in Paris, and at age 25 on graduation, was cast opposite pop star Prince as Mary Sharon, a French heiress, in the 1986 film Under The Cherry Moon.
Career
Her real breakout role was in a 1988 adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust, where she won an Evening Standard British Film Award for most promising newcomer. This was followed by roles opposite Hugh Grant in Bitter Moon and Four Weddings and a Funeral where she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress. 1996 saw the release of her most famous role as Katharine Clifton in The English Patient, which gained her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations as well as critical acclaim. This was followed by a brief period working in Hollywood on films such as The Horse Whisperer with Robert Redford and Random Hearts with Harrison Ford. However, growing disillusioned with Hollywood, she took a year off to give birth to her third child.She returned to the stage in 2001 when she played the title role in a French theatre production of Racine's Berenice and on screen as Lady Sylvia McCordle in Robert Altman's critically acclaimed Gosford Park. This started a critically acclaimed second career on stage, in which she has received four nominations for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress, including one win, for her performance of Arkadina in a London West End production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull.[9] She reprised the role in New York in September 2008.[10] In summer 2011 Scott Thomas returned to London's West End to star as Emma in Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Comedy Theatre. The revival was directed by Ian Rickson. Her husband was played by Ben Miles and the love triangle was completed by Douglas Henshall. In January 2013, she starred in another Pinter play, Old Times, again directed by Ian Rickson.
Scott Thomas also has acted in French films. In 2006, she played the role of Hélène, in French, in Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One), by French director Guillaume Canet. In 2008, Scott Thomas received many accolades for her performance in Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long), including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. In 2009 she played the role of a wife who leaves her husband for another man in the film Leaving. In Sarah's Key (2010), Scott Thomas starred as an American journalist living in Paris who discovers that the apartment her husband is renovating for them was once the home of a Jewish family who were taken away in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup.
Other recent roles include the role of Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire and Ormond, mother of Henry VIII's second wife Anne, in The Other Boleyn Girl, the role of a fashion magazine creator and editor in the film Confessions of a Shopaholic, the film adaption of Douglas Kennedy's novel The Woman in the Fifth, the 2012 film Bel Ami, based on the 1885 Maupassant novel, as a love interest of George Duroy (played by Robert Pattinson).[11] and was also seen in Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
She was awarded an OBE in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours list, and was also made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 2005.[12][13]
Personal life
Scott Thomas is divorced from François Olivennes, the French gynaecologist, with whom she has three children: Hannah (born in 1988), Joseph (1991), and George (2000).The separation was reportedly precipitated by her romantic involvement with English actor Tobias Menzies, whom she met while appearing in Chekhov's play Three Sisters in London's West End around 2003.[14] Menzies was also her co-star in a London production of Pirandello's As You Desire Me in 2006.[15]
She was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed women over 50 by The Guardian in March 2013.[16]
Filmography
Theatre
- La Lune déclinante sur 4 ou 5 personnes qui dansent (1983, Festival de Semur en Auxois)
- Terre étrangère (1984, Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers)
- 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
- Laurence Olivier Awards Best Actress – The Seagull
- Harold Pinter's Betrayal (2011, Comedy Theatre, London) ... Emma[17]
- Harold Pinter's Old Times (2013, Harold Pinter Theatre London) ... Kate/Anna [18]
- Sophocles' Electra (2014, The Old Vic, London) ... Electra.[19]
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