Emily Watson

Biography

Emily Watson (born 14 January 1967 in London) is a British actress of stage, film and television. Trained on the stage, she reached international audiences in the mid-1990s and has since built a steady career in British and international cinema, moving between leading and supporting roles across very different genres.

Her career began in the theatre. Between 1990 and 1996 she worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, performing in productions of Shakespeare and other playwrights. She first applied to a drama school and was turned down, but she kept at it, studying English at the University of Bristol before training at Drama Studio London. Her early stage work gave her the discipline that would define her screen style: restrained, precise and attentive to the inner life of her characters.

Her film breakthrough came with Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996), in which she played Bess McNeill, a woman whose devotion to her husband pushes her into extreme sacrifice. Von Trier cast her after Helena Bonham Carter left the project. The performance earned her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. Two years later she played the cellist Jacqueline du Pré in Hilary and Jackie (1998), learning the cello in about three months and receiving a second Oscar nomination.

In the years that followed she alternated prestige projects with bigger commercial productions. She worked with Robert Altman on Gosford Park (2001), appeared in Red Dragon (2002), part of the Hannibal Lecter series, and starred opposite Christian Bale in the science fiction thriller Equilibrium (2002). She has also worked with Tim Burton on Corpse Bride (2005) and with Steven Spielberg on War Horse (2011). Her supporting role in The Theory of Everything (2014) was one of several films that showed her range.

Her stage work includes Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya, staged by Sam Mendes in 2002, for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award. On television she won a BAFTA for Appropriate Adult (2011). In 2015 she received the Donostia Award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in recognition of her career. She later appeared in the HBO miniseries Chernobyl (2019) as a fictional scientist based on several real figures. She remains active, and her career places her among the most recognisable British actresses of the last three decades.

Key films

• Breaking the Waves (1996)
• Hilary and Jackie (1998)
• Angela's Ashes (1999)
• Gosford Park (2001)
• War Horse (2011)
• The Theory of Everything (2014)