Gemma Arterton

Gemma Christina Arterton (born 2 February 1986) is an English actress and producer.

Gemma Christina Arterton was born on 2 February 1986 at North Kent Hospital in Gravesend with polydactyly, a condition resulting in extra fingers which were removed shortly after her birth.

Her mother, Sally-Anne Heap, runs a cleaning business, and her father, Barry J. Arterton, is a welder.

They divorced during Arterton's early childhood, and she grew up on a council estate with her mother and younger sister, Hannah Arterton, who is also an actress.

Her matrilineal great-grandmother was a German-Jewish concert violinist.

Arterton attended Gravesend Grammar School for Girls, a state grammar school in Kent (now Mayfield Grammar School) and made her amateur stage debut in a production of Alan Ayckbourn's The Boy Who Fell into a Book.

Her performance won her the best actress prize in a competition at a local festival.

At age 16, Arterton left Gravesend Grammar School to attend acting college at the Miskin Theatre at North Kent College in Dartford.

After her stage debut in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe Theatre (2007), Arterton made her feature film debut in the comedy St Trinian's (2007).

She made her stage debut as Rosaline in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe Theatre in London in July 2007 before graduating later that year.

She made her film debut in St Trinian's (2007) as Head Girl Kelly.

She portrayed Bond Girl Strawberry Fields in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008), a performance which won her an Empire Award for Best Newcomer, and spy Pollyana "Polly" Wilkins / Agent Galahad in the action war film The King's Man (2021).

She later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), graduating in 2008.

Arterton had her first professional role in Stephen Poliakoff's Capturing Mary while she was still at drama school.

In 2008, she appeared in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

Chosen from around fifteen hundred candidates, Arterton plays Bond Girl Strawberry Fields, in what is described as a "nice-sized role".

Arterton describes her character as "the thinking man's crumpet".

In the same year, she played the eponymous protagonist in the BBC adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Also in 2008, she played Elizabeth Bennet in the ITV serial, Lost in Austen.

Arterton was the face of Avon's Bond Girl 007 fragrance, when it was launched in October 2008.

Arterton has appeared in a number of other films, including The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009), Tamara Drewe (2010), Clash of the Titans (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Their Finest (2016), The Escape (2017), and Vita and Virginia (2018).

She received the Harper's Bazaar Woman of the Year Award for acting in and producing The Escape.

Her most controversial role to date was in the 2009 film The Disappearance of Alice Creed, in which her character is kidnapped and abused in several graphic nude scenes.

The role required her to be handcuffed to a bed and wear a ball gag in her mouth throughout.

She requested that she be left tied to the bed even when the camera was not on her to help her performance.

She joked that the crew would put the ball gag back in if she was chatting too much.

The film was well received, with Frank Scheck for The Hollywood Reporter noting, "Arterton… handles the rigorous physical and emotional demands of her role with great skill".

In 2010, Arterton made her West End debut in the UK premiere of The Little Dog Laughed.

She was originally attached to star in a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights as Catherine Earnshaw; however, she later left the project.

Arterton appeared in pivotal roles in the 2010 films Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and played the lead in Tamara Drewe.

In 2010 Arterton also starred in the Almeida Theatre's production of The Master Builder directed by Travis Preston, where she was widely praised for her performance as Hilde Wangel.

In 2011, Arterton was nominated for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Rising Star Award and was under consideration for Leading Actress for her performances in Tamara Drewe and The Disappearance of Alice Creed.

In November 2012, she was selected as a member of the main competition jury at the 2012 International Film Festival of Marrakech.

Arterton starred in the action horror film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters as Gretel, opposite Jeremy Renner who played Hansel.

The 3-D film was set 15 years after Hansel and Gretel killed the witch who kidnapped them.

It was released on 25 January 2013.

Her theatrical highlights have included starring in The Duchess of Malfi (2014), Made in Dagenham (2014), Nell Gwynn (2016) and Saint Joan (2017).

Arterton was nominated for Olivier Awards for her work on both Nell Gwynn and Made in Dagenham, and she won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for the latter.

In January 2014, she took the title role in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the inaugural production at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, the new indoor theatre at Shakespeare's Globe.

Since 2016, Arterton has run her own production company, Rebel Park Productions, which focuses on creating female-led content in front of and behind the camera.