Early life

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 is the elder sister of actress Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (a former Black Rod, the parliamentary ceremonial officer in the House of Lords), and the great-great-niece of the ill-fated explorer Captain Scott, who lost the race to the South Pole.

Scott Thomas was brought up in the Roman Catholic tradition. 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. 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 breakthrough 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. She reprised the role in New York in September 2008. 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. In 2014 she appeared at The Old Vic in the title role of Sophocles's Electra.

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 in Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, as an American journalist living in Paris who discovers that the flat her husband is renovating for them was once the home of a Jewish family who were evicted.

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). and was also seen in Nicolas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

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

Personal life

Scott Thomas is divorced from François Olivennes, a French gynaecologist, by whom she has three children: Hannah (born in 1988), Joseph (1991) and George (2000). She has lived in France since she was 19, brought up her three children in Paris, and sometimes considers herself more French than British.

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. Menzies was also her co-star in a London production of Pirandello's As You Desire Me in 2006.

She was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed women over 50 by The Guardian in March 2013.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Mistral's Daughter	Nancy	TV miniseries
1985	Charly		Short film
1986	Under the Cherry Moon	Mary Sharon	Nominated - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress Nominated - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star
1987	Djamal et Juliette
1987	Agent trouble	Julie
1988	Lounge Chair	Marie
1988	Handful of Dust, AA Handful of Dust	Brenda Last	Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer
1988	Tenth Man, TheThe Tenth Man	Thérèse
1989	Bille en tête	Clara	also released as Headstrong
1989	Force majeure	Katia
1990	bal du gouverneur, LeLe bal du gouverneur	Marie Forestier
1990	Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming	Leda St Gabriel
1991	Aux yeux du monde	Institutrice !L'institutrice
1991	Valentino! I Love You		Short film
1991	Mio caro dottor Gräsler	Sabine
1992	Bitter Moon	Fiona
1993	Body & Soul	Anna - Sister Gabriel	TV miniseries
1994	Unforgettable Summer, AnAn Unforgettable Summer	Marie-Thérèse von Debretsy
1994	Four Weddings and a Funeral	Fiona	BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress
1994	Confessional, LeLe Confessional	Alfred Hitchcock's assistant
1995	Plaisir d'offrir		Short film
1995	En mai, fais ce qu'il te plaît	Martine
1995	Les Milles	Mary-Jane Cooper
1995	Richard III	Lady Anne
1995	Angels & Insects	Matty Crompton	Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress
1996	Microcosmos	Narrator
1996	Gulliver's Travels	Immortal Gatekeeper	TV miniseries
1996	English Patient, TheThe English Patient	Katharine Clifton	National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated - Academy Award for Best Actress Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role Nominated - Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
1996	Mission: Impossible	Sarah Davies
1996	Somebody to Love
1996	Pompatus of Love, TheThe Pompatus of Love	Caroline
1997	Amour et confusions	Sarah
1998	Souvenir	Ann
1998	Sweet Revenge	Imogen Staxton-Billing
1998	Horse Whisperer, TheThe Horse Whisperer	Annie MacLean
1999	Random Hearts	Kay Chandler
2000	Up at the Villa	Mary Panton
2000	Play	First Woman	Short film
2001	Life as a House	Robin Monroe
2001	Gosford Park	Sylvia McCordle	Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast Florida Film Critics Circle Award for Best Cast Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast Satellite Special Achievement Award - Ensemble Cast Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Nominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast
2003	Small Cuts	Béatrice	Petites coupures
2004	Arsène Lupin	Joséphine, comtesse de Cagliostro
2005	Man to Man	Elena van den Ende
2005	Chromophobia	Iona Aylesbury
2005	Keeping Mum	Gloria Goodfellow	Nominated - London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Actress of the Year
2006	Valet, TheThe Valet	Christine Levasseur
2007	Mauvaise pente	Yolande Moreau
2007	Tell No One	Hélène Perkins
2007	Walker, TheThe Walker	Lynn Lockner
2007	Golden Compass, TheThe Golden Compass	Stelmaria
2008	I've Loved You So Long	Juliette	European Film Award for Best Actress London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Actress of the Year Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Nominated - Cesar Award for Best Actress Nominated - Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama Nominated - Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actress Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
2008	Other Boleyn Girl, TheThe Other Boleyn Girl	Elizabeth Boleyn
2008	Seuls two	L'antiquaire
2008	Easy Virtue	Mrs. Whittaker	Nominated - British Independent Film Awards for Best Supporting Actress Nominated - London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Supporting Actress of the Year
2008	Largo Winch	Ann Fergusson
2009	Confessions of a Shopaholic	Alette Naylor
2009	Leaving	Suzanne	Nominated - Cesar Award for Best Actress Nominated - Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress
2010	Nowhere Boy	Mimi Smith	Nominated - British Independent Film Awards for Best Supporting Actress Nominated - London Film Critics' Circle Award for British Supporting Actress of the Year Nominated - BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture Nominated - Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actress
2010	Contre Toi	Anna Cooper
2010	Crime d'amour (Love Crime)	Christine
2010	Sarah's Key	Julia Jarmond	Lumières Award for Best Actress Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress Nominated - Cesar Award for Best Actress
2011	The Woman in the Fifth	Margit Kadar
2011	Salmon Fishing in the Yemen	Patricia Maxwell
2012	Bel Ami	Virginie Walters
2012	In the House	Jeanne Germain
2012	Looking for Hortense	Iva Delusi
2013	Only God Forgives	Crystal
2013	The Invisible Woman	Catherine Ternan
2013	Before the Winter Chill	Lucie
2014	Suite française	Madame Angellier
2014	My Old Lady	Chloé Girard
2015	The Kitchen Boy	Alexandra Romanov

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
• Harold Pinter's Betrayal (2011, Comedy Theatre, London) ... Emma
• Harold Pinter's Old Times (2013, Harold Pinter Theatre London) ... Kate/Anna
• Sophocles' Electra (2014, The Old Vic, London) ... Electra
• Peter Morgan's The Audience (2015, Apollo Theatre, London) ... Queen Elizabeth II

Olivier Awards

Year	Category	Play	Result
2004	Best Actress	Three Sisters	Nominated
2008	Best Actress	The Seagull	Won
2012	Best Actress	Betrayal	Nominated
2013	Best Actress	Old Times	Nominated
2015	Best Actress	Electra	Nominated

National honours

• Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2015)
• Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (2005).

[ Source: Wikipedia ]