Kristin Scott Thomas

Dame Kristin Ann Scott Thomas (born 24 May 1960) is a British actress.

Her mother remarried another Royal Navy pilot, Lieutenant Commander Simon Idiens (of Simon's Sircus aerobatic team flying Sea Vixens), who also died in a flying accident, whilst flying a Phantom FG1 from RNAS Yeovilton off the North coast of Cornwall in January 1972.

Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and St Antony's Leweston in Sherborne, Dorset, both independent schools.

On leaving school in 1978, she moved to Hampstead, London, and worked in a department store.

She began training to become a drama teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama, enrolling on a BEd in Speech and Drama.

During her time at the school, she requested to switch degree courses to acting but was refused.

After a year at Central, speaking French fluently, she decided to move to Paris to work as an au pair, and studied acting at the École Nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre (ENSATT).

Scott Thomas made her film debut in Under the Cherry Moon (1986), and won the Evening Standard Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer for A Handful of Dust (1988).

When she was 25, she was cast as Mary Sharon in the film Under the Cherry Moon (1986).

Kristin Scott Thomas' acting career garnered early attention when she was cast as Mary Sharon in Under the Cherry Moon, released in 1986, the first but widely panned film directed by and starring the already well-known musical artist, Prince.

Her breakthrough role was playing Brenda Last in an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust (1988), winning her the Evening Standard British Film Award for the 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.

Her work includes Bitter Moon (1992), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), Gosford Park (2001), The Valet (2006), and Tell No One (2007).

Five-time BAFTA Award and Olivier Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and the Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2008 for the Royal Court revival of The Seagull.

In 1994, she starred in the Romanian–French film An Unforgettable Summer, in which she played Marie-Thérèse Von Debretsy.

Rather than learn Romanian for the part, she read her lines phonetically.

She had all the lines translated into French, which she speaks fluently, so she knew what she was saying.

She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in The English Patient (1996).

1996 saw the release of the film with her most famous role as Katharine Clifton, 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 was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2003 Birthday Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama.

She returned to the stage in 2003 when she played the title role in a French theatre production of Racine's Bérénice, and appeared on-screen as Lady Sylvia McCordle in Robert Altman's 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.

She was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 2005.

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, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, a pilot in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm who died in a flying accident when Kristin was aged five.

She has three siblings, including Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (a former Black Rod), the granddaughter of William Scott Thomas (who commanded HMS Impulsive (D11) during World War II) and the great-great-niece of the polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

The childhood home of Scott Thomas was in Trent, near Sherborne, Dorset, England.

In 2006, she played the role of Hélène, in French, in Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One), by French director Guillaume Canet.

She won the European Film Award for Best Actress for Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long (2008).

She reprised the role in New York in September 2008.

Her other films include Leaving (2009), Love Crime (2010), Sarah's Key (2010), Nowhere Boy (2010), The Woman in the Fifth (2011), Only God Forgives (2013), Darkest Hour (2017), and Tomb Raider (2018).

In January 2013, she starred in another Pinter play, Old Times, again directed by Ian Rickson.

In summer 2014, 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 2014, she appeared at The Old Vic in the title role of Sophocles's Electra.

Scott Thomas has also acted in French films.

In an interview for Gloucester Citizen on 22 March 2015, she cited An Unforgettable Summer as one of the films that she is most proud of alongside The English Patient and Only God Forgives.