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Kate Beckinsale | |
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.jpg) Beckinsale at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con | |
| Born | Kathrin Romany Beckinsale 26 July 1973 London, England |
| Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1991–present |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Michael Sheen (1995–2003) |
| Children | 1 |
| Parents |
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| Relatives |
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Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973)[1][2][3] is an English actress known for her roles in period, romance, and action films. The only child of actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe, Kate Beckinsale made her acting debut when she was only a year old,[4] as an extra on the British daytime drama Couples (1975), on which her parents also appeared. She didn't act again until she was nearly an adult, beginning in 1991 with a small voice role in an episode of the miniseries adaptation of P. D. James' Devices and Desires and a supporting role in the television movie One Against the Wind starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. In 1992, she starred in the Blade Runner-inspired short film "Rachel's Dream" with Christopher Eccleston and debuted onstage in a production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever.
In 1993, she costarred in the Anna Lee pilot "Headcase" and made her theatrical film debut with the brief but crucial role of Hero in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing whilst studying at the University of Oxford. Subsequently, she established herself in leading roles in numerous British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996), and The Golden Bowl (2000). She challenged herself by taking roles in films such as The Last Days of Disco (1998), Brokedown Palace (1999), Pearl Harbor (2001), Serendipity (2001), Tiptoes (2003), The Aviator (2004), and Click (2006).
Since taking the role of Selene in the Underworld film series (2003–2016), Beckinsale became known for her work in action films, including Van Helsing (2004), Whiteout (2009), Contraband (2012), Total Recall (2012), and Jolt (2021) while also earning acclaim for her roles in Snow Angels (2007), Nothing but the Truth (2008), Everybody's Fine (2009), Love & Friendship (2016), and The Only Living Boy in New York (2017). In recent years, she returned to television in the limited series The Widow (2019) and the short-lived dramedy Guilty Party (2021), also serving as an executive producer in the latter.
Early life and education[edit]
Kathrin Romany Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in the Chiswick district of London,[5][6] the only child of actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe.[7] She has a half-sister from her father's earlier marriage, actress Samantha Beckinsale.[7] Her father was partly of Burmese descent.[8][9] Her parents did not marry until 1977, prior to Beckinsale starting nursery school,[10] when she made her first television appearance at age four, in an episode of This Is Your Life, dedicated to her father.[11] When she was five, her father died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 31. She was deeply traumatised by the loss and "started expecting bad things to happen."[12][7]
Her widowed mother moved in with director Roy Battersby when Beckinsale was nine, and she was brought up alongside his four sons and daughter.[13] She had a close relationship with her stepfather,[7] who was a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party during her youth.[14] She helped to sell The News Line, a Trotskyist newspaper, as a little girl and has said the household phone was tapped following Battersby's blacklisting by the BBC.[14] Family friends included Ken Loach and Vanessa Redgrave.[14]
Beckinsale was educated at Godolphin and Latymer School, an independent school for girls in Hammersmith, West London, and was involved with the Orange Tree Youth Theatre.[15] She was twice a winner of the WH Smith Young Writers Award for both fiction and poetry.[16] She has described herself as a "late bloomer": "All of my friends were kissing boys and drinking cider way before me. I found it really depressing that we weren't making camp fires and everyone was doing stuff like that."[17] She had a nervous breakdown and developed anorexia at age fifteen,[18] and underwent Freudian psychoanalysis for four years.[7]
Beckinsale studied Russian at school[19] and read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford, and was later described by her contemporary Victoria Coren Mitchell, as "whip-clever, slightly nuts, and very charming".[20] She became friends with Roy Kinnear's daughter Kirsty.[21] She was involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, most notably being directed by fellow student Tom Hooper in a production of A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse.[22] As a Modern Languages student, she was required to spend her third year abroad, and studied in Paris. She then quit university to focus on her burgeoning acting career: "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high pressure."[7] Beckinsale has stated she would like to complete her studies at Oxford University.[23][24]
Career[edit]
1991–1997: Early acting roles[edit]
Beckinsale decided at a young age she wanted to be an actress: "I grew up immersed in film. My family were in the business. I quickly realised that my parents seemed to have much more fun in their work than any of my friends' parents."[25] She was inspired by the performances of Jeanne Moreau.[26] She made her television debut in 1991 with a small part in an ITV adaptation of P. D. James' Devices and Desires.[27] In 1992, she starred alongside Christopher Eccleston in "Rachel's Dream," a 30‑minute Channel 4 short.[28] In 1993, she appeared in the pilot of the ITV detective series, Anna Lee, starring Imogen Stubbs.[29]
In 1993, Beckinsale landed the role of Hero in Kenneth Branagh's big-screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. It was filmed in Tuscany, Italy, during a summer holiday from Oxford University.[30] She attended the film's Cannes Film Festival premiere and remembered it as an overwhelming experience. "Nobody even told me I could bring a friend!"[17] "I had Doc Martens boots on, and I think I put the flower from the breakfast tray in my hair."[31] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was won over by her "lovely" performance.[32] Vincent Canby of The New York Times noted that she and Robert Sean Leonard "look right and behave with a certain naive sincerity, although they often seem numb with surprise at hearing the complex locutions they speak."[33] The film grossed over $22 million at the box office.[34]
She made three other films while at university. In 1994, she appeared as Christian Bale's love interest in Prince of Jutland, a film based on the Danish legend which inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet,[35] and starred in the murder mystery Uncovered.[36] In 1995, while studying in Paris, she filmed the French language Marie-Louise ou la permission.[37]
Shortly after leaving Oxford University in 1995, Beckinsale starred in Cold Comfort Farm, as Flora Poste, a newly orphaned 1930s socialite sent to live with distant family members in rural England. The John Schlesinger-directed film was an adaptation of Stella Gibbons's novel and also featured Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Rufus Sewell and Stephen Fry. Beckinsale was initially considered too young, but was cast after she wrote a pleading letter to the director.[38] Emanuel Levy of Variety was reminded of "the strength of a young Glenda Jackson and the charm of a young Julie Christie."[39] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times classed the actress as "yet another of those effortlessly skilled British beauties who light up the screen."[40] Janet Maslin of The New York Times felt she played the role "with the perfect snippy aplomb."[41] The film grossed over $5 million at the US box office.[42]
Also in 1995, she appeared in Haunted, a ghost story in which Derek Elley of Variety felt she "holds the screen, with both physical looks and verbal poise."[43] 1995 saw Beckinsale's first professional stage appearance, as Nina in The Seagull at Theatre Royal, Bath. She became romantically involved with co-star Michael Sheen after meeting during play rehearsals.[44] She later said: "I was all revved up to feel very intimidated. It was my first-ever play and my mother had cut out reviews of him in previous productions. And then he walked in ... It was almost like, 'God, well, I'm finished now. That's it, then.'... He's the most outrageously talented person I've ever met."[45] Irving Wardle of The Independent felt that "the casting, including Michael Sheen's volcanic Kostya and Kate Beckinsale's steadily freezing Nina, is mainly spot-on."[46] In early 1996, she starred in two further plays, Sweetheart at the Royal Court Theatre[47] and Clocks and Whistles at the Bush Theatre.[48]
Beckinsale next starred in an ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, playing Emma to Mark Strong's Mr Knightley and Samantha Morton's Harriet Smith. "You shouldn't necessarily like Emma," Beckinsale has said of her character. "You do love her, but in the way the family of a young girl could be exasperated by her outrageous behaviour and still love her."[38] The programme was aired in autumn 1996, just months after Gwyneth Paltrow had starred in a film adaptation of the same story.[38] Caryn James of The New York Times felt that while "Ms. Beckinsale's Emma is plainer looking than Ms. Paltrow's," she is "altogether more believable and funnier."[49] Jonathan Brown of The Independent has described Beckinsale's interpretation as "the most enduring modern performance" as Emma.[50]
In 1997, Beckinsale appeared opposite Stuart Townsend in the comedy Shooting Fish, one of the most commercially successful British films of that year.[51][52] "I'd just had my wisdom teeth out," Beckinsale later recalled of the initial audition. "I was also on very strong painkillers, so it was not the most conventional of meetings."[53] Elley wrote of "an incredibly laid-back performance".[54] Thomas felt she "just glows as an aristocrat facing disaster with considerable aplomb."[55] She narrated Austen's Emma for Hodder & Stoughton AudioBooks[56] and Diana Hendry's "The Proposal" for BBC Radio 4.[57][58] Also in 1997, she played Juliet to Michael Sheen's Romeo, in an audio production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Sheen.[59]
In Beckinsale's last film before her move to the US, she starred as Alice in Channel 4's Alice Through the Looking-Glass, released in July 1998.[60]
1998–2002: Move to Hollywood[edit]
At this point in her career, Beckinsale began to seek work in the United States, something she has said wasn't "a conscious decision... My boyfriend was in a play on Broadway so that's why we ended up in New York, and my auditions happened to be for American films."[61] She starred opposite Chloë Sevigny in 1998's The Last Days of Disco. The Whit Stillman film focused on a group of mostly Ivy League and Hampshire College graduates socialising in the Manhattan disco scene of the early 1980s. Beckinsale's American accent was widely praised.[62][63][64] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times felt her role as the bossy Charlotte was "beautifully played."[65] Todd McCarthy of Variety was unimpressed by the film but noted that "compensations include Beckinsale, looking incredible in a succession of black dresses, whose character can get on your nerves even if the actress doesn't."[66] Her performance earned her a London Critics' Circle Film Award.[67] The film grossed $3 million worldwide.[68]
In 1999, Beckinsale appeared opposite Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace, a drama about two young Americans forced to deal with the Thai justice system on a post-graduation trip abroad. A then 26-year-old Beckinsale played a young girl.[69] Danes had hoped to become friends with Beckinsale during the shoot but found her "complicated" and "prickly."[70] McCarthy said the leads "confirm their status as two of the young actresses on the scene today most worth watching," finding Beckinsale "very effective at getting across layered character traits and emotions."[71] "Danes and Beckinsale are exceptionally talented young actresses," said Thomas, but "unfortunately, the script's seriously underdeveloped context defeats their considerable efforts at every turn."[72] Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt that Beckinsale's character "never comes into focus."[73] The film was a box office failure.[74]
2000's The Golden Bowl marked Beckinsale's first role following the birth of her daughter. The Merchant/Ivory production was based on the novel by Henry James and also starred Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam. Beckinsale's partner, Michael Sheen, hit Northam on the film set after he followed Beckinsale to her trailer to scold her for forgetting a line.[75] Holden noted "the most satisfying of the four-lead performances belong to the British cast members, Ms. Beckinsale and Mr. Northam, who are better than their American counterparts at layers of emotional concealment," adding each beat of Beckinsale's performance "registers precisely."[76] Thomas felt her performance would take her to "a new career level."[77] Andrew Sarris of The New York Observer asserted that she "comes close to capturing the sublimity of Maggie, despite the obvious fact that no movie can capture the elegant copiousness of James' prose."[78] The film grossed over $5 million worldwide.[79]
Beckinsale rose to fame in 2001 with a leading role in the war film Pearl Harbor, as a nurse torn between two pilots, played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. She was drawn to the project by the script: "It's so unusual these days to read a script that has those old-fashioned values to it. Not morals, but movie values. It's a big, sweeping epic....You just never get the chance to do that."[80] Director Michael Bay initially had doubts about casting the actress: "I wasn't sure about her at first...she wore black leather trousers in her screen test and I thought she was a little nasty...it was easy to think of this woman as a slut."[81] He eventually decided to hire her because she wasn't "too beautiful. Women feel disturbed when they see someone's too pretty."[82] He asked her to lose weight during filming.[83]
In a 2004 interview, the actress noted that his comments were "upsetting"[84] and said she wore leather trousers because "it was snowing out. It wasn't exactly like I had my nipple rings in."[85] She felt grateful that she had not had to deal with such criticism at a younger age: "If I had come on to a movie set at [a younger] age and someone had said, 'You're a bit funny-looking, can you go on a diet?' – I might have jumped off a building. I just didn't have the confidence to put that into perspective at the time."[81] However, speaking in 2011, she said she was "very fond" of Bay.[86]
Pearl Harbor received negative reviews. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised "the avid eyed, ruby lipped Kate Beckinsale, the rare actress whose intelligence gives her a sensual bloom; she's like Parker Posey without irony."[87] A. O. Scott of The New York Times noted that "Mr. Affleck and Ms. Beckinsale do what they can with their lines, and glow with the satiny shine of real movie stars."[88] However, Mike Clark of USA Today felt that the "usually appealing Kate Beckinsale" is "inexplicably submerged – like her hospital colleagues – under heaps of tarty makeup that even actresses of the era didn't wear."[89] The film was a commercial success, grossing $449 million worldwide.[90]
Beckinsale's second film appearance of 2001 was in the romantic comedy Serendipity, as the love interest of John Cusack. It was filmed directly after Pearl Harbor and Beckinsale found it "a real relief to return to something slightly more familiar."[61] Turan praised the "appealing and believable" leads, adding that Beckinsale "reinforces the strong impression she made in Cold Comfort Farm, The Golden Bowl, and The Last Days of Disco" after "recovering nicely" from her appearance in the much-maligned Pearl Harbor.[91] Claudia Puig of USA Today felt that "Beckinsale's talents haven't been mined as effectively in any other film since Cold Comfort Farm."[92] McCarthy found her "energetic and appealing".[93] Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times described her as "luminous but determined."[94] In an uncomplimentary review of the film, Roger Ebert described her as "a good actress, but not good enough to play this dumb."[95] The film has grossed over $77 million at the worldwide box office.[96]
In 2002, Beckinsale starred in Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon, as a strait-laced academic who finds herself increasingly attracted to her free-spirited future mother-in-law. The independent film was another opportunity for Beckinsale to work with Christian Bale, her Prince of Jutland co‑star. She found their sex scene awkward because she knew Bale well: "If it was a stranger, it would have been easier."[97] While Frances McDormand's performance as Bale's mother was widely praised, Beckinsale received negative reviews. Holden found the film "superbly acted, with the exception of Ms. Beckinsale, whose tense, colourless Alex conveys no inner life."[98] Critic Lisa Schwarzbaum was unimpressed by the "tedious" characters and criticised "the fussy performances of Bale and Beckinsale" in particular.[99] The film has grossed over $4 million worldwide.[100]
2003–2006: Action roles[edit]
Beckinsale became known as an action star after playing a vampire in 2003's Underworld. The film was markedly different from her previous work, and Beckinsale has said she was grateful for the change of pace after appearing in "a bunch of period stuff and then a bunch of romantic comedies,"[101] adding that "It was quite a challenge for me to play an action heroine and pull off all that training when [in real life] I can't catch a ball if it's coming my way."[102] The film received negative to mixed reviews but was a surprise box-office hit and has gained a cult following.[103] Also in 2003, she starred in the little seen Tiptoes with Gary Oldman and Matthew McConaughey.[104]
In 2004, Beckinsale starred in the action horror film Van Helsing. She was "so surprised" to be appearing in her second action film in two years. "It just seemed like a very good role."[105] Beckinsale had just separated from her long-term boyfriend Michael Sheen at the time of filming and appreciated the warm atmosphere created on set by director Stephen Sommers and co‑star Hugh Jackman: "I really did find that working with people like Stephen and Hugh made it possible to get through what I was going through."[106] The film grossed over $120 million at the US box office and over $300 million worldwide, but it was not well-reviewed.[107][108] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described her as "a pretty actress doing her best to maintain dignity, vainly trying to craft a feminist statement from a filmmaker's whimsy".[109] Rex Reed of The New York Observer felt she was "desperately in need of a new agent."[110]
Also in 2004, Beckinsale portrayed Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Scorsese decided to cast Beckinsale because, "I've always liked her. I've seen all her work, and I was glad that she agreed to audition."[111] Beckinsale's performance received mixed reviews. Ken Tucker of New York Magazine said she played the part "in full va-va-voom blossom".[112] LaSalle felt that she manages "to convince us that Ava was one of the great broads of all time."[113] However, Clark described it as "the one performance that doesn't come off (though Beckinsale has the requisite beauty)".[114] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian stated that "Gardner's rich, voluptuous sexiness is completely absent as Beckinsale sleepwalks through the role as if she was advertising perfume."[115] The film grossed over $213 million worldwide.[116]
In 2006, Beckinsale reprised her role as Selene in the successful vampire sequel Underworld: Evolution, directed by her husband, Len Wiseman.[117] It was the first time she had "been involved with a movie from the moment it's a germ of an idea right through the whole editing process."[118] Her daughter had a small role as the younger Selene.[118] The film was a box office success, grossing $111 million worldwide.[119] Beckinsale's second film appearance of 2006 was opposite Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken in Click, a comedy about an overworked family man who discovers a magical remote control that allows him to control time. The opportunity to play a mother "was one of the things that was attractive to me" about the part.[120] It was highly profitable, grossing $237 million worldwide against a production budget of $82.5 million.[121]
2007–2008: Focus on small-scale drama[edit]
Beckinsale then made a return to smaller-scale projects: "My experience is that I sort of stepped away from the independent movies and did a couple of big movies. But that's not necessarily how it's perceived by everybody else, which I do understand."[122] "I enjoy an action movie as much as the next person [but] it's not something that I would like to do solely."[123] She explained that she had originally decided to appear in Underworld because she felt typecast in classical roles – it was "assumed that I use a chamber pot and wear bloomers"[124] – but that her action career "kind of took off a little too much."