|
About
the Cast
RENÉE
ZELLWEGER (Bridget)
is one of the most cherished and respected actors in modern cinema.
Zellweger is most notably known for her starring role as the seminal
British everywoman in the 2001 feature Bridget Jones’s Diary and
in the 2004 sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, both
opposite Hugh Grant and Colin Firth. In the first installment of the
franchise, she earned her first Oscar® nomination,
Golden Globe Award, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award and British Academy
of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award nominations, among others. The
sequel delivered her another Golden Globe Award nomination for Best
Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical.
Zellweger earned her second Academy Award® nomination
as convicted killer Roxie Hart in Chicago, the 2002 Oscar®-winning
film version of the Tony-Award winning musical. Acting, singing and
dancing alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones, who portrayed fellow death row
inmate Velma Kelly, Zellweger took home a Golden Globe Award for Best
Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical and
others, including a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female
Actor in a Leading Role. She later earned the Academy Award® for
Best Supporting Actress in Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain,
the 2003 Civil War drama in which she jumped off the screen as feisty
farm worker Ruby Thewes. For her work in Cold Mountain,
Zellweger also garnered a Golden Globe Award and best supporting role
honors from SAG, BAFTA, Broadcast Film Critics Association and numerous
others.
In 2017, Zellweger will be seen in the adaptation of the book “Same
Kind of Different as Me,” opposite Greg Kinnear and Djimon Hounsou.
In Same Kind of Different as Me, Zellweger stars as Deborah
Hall, the wife of a wealthy art dealer. The film follows the struggling
journey of an unlikely friendship between her husband and a former
sharecropper-turned-drifter. Zellweger’s character is also faced with
challenges of her own which include the preserving of her health and
faith. Another upcoming project includes Courtney Hunt’s courtroom
drama The Whole Truth, opposite Keanu Reeves.
After graduating with an English degree from the University of Texas,
Zellweger did some initial film and television work before making her
feature debut in Richard Linklater’s seminal coming-of-age film Dazed
and Confused. Other film roles quickly followed, including Ben
Stiller’s Reality Bites, Love and a .45 and Texas
Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and My
Boyfriend’s Back. In 1996, Zellweger won the affection of
audiences with her breakthrough role opposite Tom Cruise in Cameron
Crowe’s Jerry Maguire. Subsequent film roles for Zellweger
have included the acclaimed One True Thing, which also starred
William Hurt and Meryl Streep; the dark comedy Nurse Betty,
opposite Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman; Me, Myself & Irene,
opposite Jim Carrey; the drama White Oleander, which also starred
Robin Wright Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer; Peyton Reed’s romantic
comedy Down with Love opposite Ewan McGregor; and Ron
Howard’s Depression-era boxing drama Cinderella Man, which
also starred Russell Crowe. She has also lent her voice to such animated
features as DreamWorks’ Shark Tale, Bee Movie and Monsters
vs. Aliens.
A classically trained British theater actor, Academy Award® winner COLIN
FIRTH (Mark) is a veteran of film, television and theater, with
an impressive body of work spanning over three decades. Firth has
appeared in three films that have won the Academy Award® for
Best Picture: The King’s Speech, Shakespeare in
Love and The English Patient. In 2011, Firth’s
performance as King George VI in The King’s Speech garnered
him an Academy Award® as well as a Golden Globe Award,
Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award, British Independent Film Award,
Critics’ Choice Movie Award, and his second consecutive British
Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award. In 2010, he won the
BAFTA Award, and in 2009, the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice
Film Festival for his performance in Tom Ford’s A Single Man.
In 2008, Firth starred in Universal Pictures’ global smash
hit Mamma Mia! The film grossed over $600 million worldwide
and is the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the U.K. He also
starred in Universal Pictures’ and Working Title’s Bridget
Jones’s Diary and its sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge
of Reason, as well as in Richard Curtis’ Love Actually.
At the time of its release, Love Actually broke
box-office records as the highest-grossing British romantic comedy
opening of all time in the U.K. and Ireland, and was the largest opening
in the history of Working Title Films.
In 2012, Firth was seen in Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy opposite Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy. The thriller
was based on John Le Carré’s Cold War spy novel. The film garnered
three Academy Award® nominations including Best Adapted
Screenplay and won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film and Best
Adapted Screenplay.
In 2013, Firth appeared in Jonathan Teplitzky’s The Railway
Man, which also starred Nicole Kidman and Jeremy Irvine. The film
was based on the true story of Eric Lomax (Firth) who set out to find
those responsible for his torture during his time as a prisoner in World
War II.
In 2014, he was seen in Woody Allen’s Magic in the Moonlight,
which also starred Emma Stone. That same year, he starred in Matthew
Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, based on the
acclaimed comic book of the same name in which Firth played the role of
a secret agent who recruits and trains an unrefined but promising street
kid into the agency’s competitive training program. The cast included
Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Caine and Taron Edgerton. In 2015, Eye
in the Sky, Firth’s first film produced and distributed by his
production company with partner Ged Doherty, Raindog Films, was
released.
Firth recently appeared in Genius, a chronicle of Max
Perkins’s time as the book editor at Scribner, where he oversaw works
by Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film
premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival and stars
Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Guy Pearce and Vanessa Kirby. The film was
released on June 10.
Later this year, Firth will star alongside Rachel Weisz and David
Thewlis in the drama The Mercy. He portrays Donald
Crowhurst, a yachtsman who attempts to win the 1968 Golden Globe Race
but ends up creating an outrageous account of traveling the world alone
by sea. A release date has not been confirmed yet.
Firth has most recently produced the feature Loving, which
was inspired by Nancy Buirski’s Primetime Emmy Award-winning
documentary The Loving Story. The film is directed and
written by Jeff Nichols and stars Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga, Michael
Shannon and Nick Kroll. The drama is set in Virginia in 1958 and follows
the story of Mildred and Richard Loving, a couple sentenced to prison
because of their interracial marriage. The film is set to be released on
November 4.
His other film credits include the Oscar®-nominated Girl
with a Pearl Earring, Devil’s Knot, Arthur
Newman, Then She Found Me, When Did You Last See
Your Father?, Easy Virtue, Michael
Winterbottom’s Genova, A Christmas Carol, The
Importance of Being Earnest, Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies,
Marc Evans’ thriller Trauma, Nanny McPhee, What
a Girl Wants, A Thousand Acres with Michelle
Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange, Apartment Zero, My Life
So Far, Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, Circle of
Friends, Playmaker and the title role in Milos
Forman’s Valmont opposite Annette Bening.
On the small screen, Firth is infamous for his breakout role as Mr.
Darcy in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, for which he
received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actor and the National
Television Award for Most Popular Actor.
In March 2004, Firth hosted NBC’s Saturday Night Live. In
2001, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding
Supporting Actor in the critically acclaimed HBO film Conspiracy,
and he also received the Royal Television Society Best Actor Award and a
BAFTA Award nomination for his performance in Tumbledown.
His other television credits include BBC television movie Born
Equal, Donovan Quick, The Widowing of Mrs.
Holroyd, The Deep Blue Sea, Hostages and
the miniseries Nostromo. His London stage debut was in the
West End production of Another Country in the role of Guy
Bennett. He was then chosen to play the character Judd in the 1984 film
adaptation opposite Rupert Everett.
Firth is an active supporter of Oxfam International, an organization
dedicated to fighting poverty and related injustice around the world. He
was honored with the Humanitarian Award by BAFTA Los Angeles at their
2009 Britannia Awards. In 2008, he was named Philanthropist of the Year
by The Hollywood Reporter and, in 2006, he was voted the
European Voice Campaigner of the Year by the European Union.
PATRICK DEMPSEY (Jack) is best known for his portrayal of Dr. Derek Shepherd on the ABC hit
series Grey’s Anatomy. In 2007, his performance earned him
a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award for Outstanding Performance by an
Ensemble in a Drama Series. He was nominated for seven People’s Choice
Awards for the role, and, in 2015, took home his third award. In 2006
and 2007, Dempsey was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best
Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Drama, and in 2006,
he was nominated for a SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male
Actor in a Drama Series.
Dempsey’s production company Shifting Gears produces content for both
television and film. They have optioned the book “The Limit,” for
which they are currently developing a series at SundanceTV, as well as
the series Fodors, which is being developed for NBCUniversal
International Networks. Shifting Gears is also producing the
upcoming The Art of Racing in the Rain.
Alongside Dempsey’s passion for acting is his great passion for
motorsports. He has been competitively driving and operating his race
and championship-winning Dempsey Racing team for nearly a decade. In
2013, Dempsey starred in the Shifting Gears produced docuseries Patrick
Dempsey: Racing Le Mans for Velocity Channel. The series
followed Dempsey as he served as both owner and driver for an auto
racing team tackling the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s
oldest automotive endurance race. Dempsey served as both the executive
producer and on-air focus for the series.
In 2008, he opened the doors of the Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer
Hope and Healing in his hometown of Lewiston, Maine. Each fall, the
Dempsey Challenge – a run, walk and cycle fundraising experience –
takes place to raise funds for free support, education and integrative
medicine services to anyone impacted by cancer.
Dempsey became well known from the classic 1980s nostalgia films Can’t
Buy Me Love and Loverboy. His additional film credits
include Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Valentine’s
Day, Made of Honor, Enchanted, Freedom
Writers, Sweet Home Alabama, Scream 3, With
Honors, Outbreak, Hugo Pool, The Treat, The
Emperor’s Club, Heaven Help Us, Happy Together, Some
Girls, Coupe de Ville, Run, Mobsters and In
the Mood.
Dempsey nabbed a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 2001 for his
portrayal of Sela Ward’s psychologically unbalanced brother Aaron
Brooks in the critically acclaimed television program Once and Again.
In 2000-2001, he made memorable guest appearances on three episodes of
NBC’s hit show Will & Grace as Will’s love
interest and, in 2004, he co-starred in the highly acclaimed HBO
production Iron Jawed Angels opposite Hilary Swank and
Anjelica Huston.
Additionally, Dempsey starred in the NBC movie based on Fyodor
Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” opposite Ben Kingsley. He
also appeared in the television miniseries 20,000 Leagues Under
the Sea with Michael Caine. He co-starred with Oliver Reed in
the biblical epic, Jeremiah. Other television movies and
miniseries include JFK: Reckless Youth, A Season in
Purgatory, Bloodknot, The Right to Remain Silent, In
a Shallow Grave and Blonde.
Dempsey first appeared onstage as David in the San Francisco production
of Torch Song Trilogy. Other early stage work included On
Golden Pond for the Maine Acting Company; the international
touring production of Brighton Beach Memoirs, which was
directed by Gene Saks; and The Subject Was Roses at the
Roundabout Theatre in New York. He also took the stage in The Pasadena
Playhouse run of The Importance of Being Earnest as
Algernon Moncrieff.
JIM BROADBENT (Dad) is an Academy Award®, British Academy of Film and
Television Arts (BAFTA) Award, Primetime Emmy Award and Golden Globe
Award-winning theater, film and television actor, best known for roles
in Iris, for which he won the Best Supporting Actor award
both at the Academy Awards® and the Golden Globe Awards
in 2001; Moulin Rouge!, for which he was awarded the BAFTA
Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in 2001; and
the international phenomenon the Harry Potter franchise.
He was nominated for a BAFTA Award most recently for his role alongside
Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady. He has since continued to
appear in an eclectic mix of projects, including Jon S. Baird’s
scurrilous Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth; Roger Michell’s
romantic comedy drama Le Week End, for which he was
nominated for a British Independent Film Award as Best Actor; and The
Harry Hill Movie, in which he appeared in drag as a three-armed
cleaning lady. More recently Broadbent has starred in Get Santa,
Paddington, Brooklyn and The Lady in
the Van.
Since
his film debut in 1978, Broadbent has appeared in countless successful
and acclaimed films, establishing a long-running collaboration with Mike
Leigh (Life Is Sweet, Topsy-Turvy, Vera Drake and Another
Year) and demonstrating his talents as a character actor in films as
diverse as The Crying Game, Bullets Over Broadway, Little
Voice, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Hot Fuzz, The
Damned United and Cloud Atlas.
Also honored for his extensive work on television, Broadbent most
recently received a Royal Television Society Award and BAFTA Award
nomination for his leading performance in Any Human Heart.
He previously was recognized with a BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award
for his performance in Longford, and won an International
Emmy Award for his performance in The Street. His role
in The Gathering Storm earned him Golden Globe Award
and Primetime Emmy Award nominations.
Having studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art,
Broadbent has also appeared extensively on the stage, notably with the
Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. His work on
the stage has seen him appear in acclaimed productions ranging
from Our Friends in the North at the RSC Pit, A
Place with the Pigs at The National and A Flea In Her
Ear at the Old Vic, through to Habeas Corpus at
the Donmar Warehouse and The Pillowman at The National.
Most recently he appeared as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in
the West End.
GEMMA JONES (Mum) is one of the U.K.’s most established and beloved actors with a
career spanning four decades across stage, film and television. Best
known to film audiences for her role as Poppy Pomfrey in the Harry
Potter series, she also starred in Woody Allen’s You
Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Ang Lee’s Sense and
Sensibility, Brian Gilbert’s Wilde, Paul Greengrass’ The
Theory of Flight and David Mamet’s The Winslow Boy.
In 2014, she starred in Tom Browne’s Radiator.
Her television credits include the BBC’s The Merchant of
Venice, Merlin, Marvellous (for which
she won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Television Award
for Best Supporting Actress), Capital (BBC) and Unforgotten (ITV).
EMMA THOMPSON (Dr Rawlings/Screenplay by) is one of the world’s most respected talents
for her versatility in acting as well as screenwriting. She is the sole
artist thus far to have received an Academy Award® for
both acting and screenwriting.
In 1992, Thompson caused a sensation with her portrayal of Margaret
Schlegel in Merchant-Ivory Productions adaptation of E.M.
Forster’s Howards End. Sweeping the Best Actress category
wherever it was considered, the performance netted her a British Academy
of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award, a Los Angeles Film Critics
Association Award, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, a Golden Globe
Award and an Academy Award®. The following year, she earned
two Oscar® nominations for her work in The
Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father.
In 1995, Thompson’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and
Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee, won the Academy Award® for
Best Adapted Screenplay, the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and
won Best Screenplay awards from the Writers Guild of America and the
Writers Guild of Great Britain, among others. For her performance in the
film she was honored with a BAFTA Award for Best Actress and nominated
for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award®. Her
performance in Richard Curtis’ Love Actually earned
Thompson the Best Actress award at the 2003 Evening Standard British
Film Awards; London Film Critics’ Circle Film Awards and Empire
Awards, U.K.; along with a BAFTA Award nomination. In 2013, Thompson’s
moving portrayal of author P.L. Travers in Saving Mr. Banks earned
her both the National Board of Review and Empire Best Actress Awards,
along with nominations for a Golden Globe Award, Critics’ Choice Movie
Award, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award and BAFTA Award nominations.
Thompson most recently completed filming on Noah Baumbach’s The
Meyerowitz Stories in New York and as Mrs. Potts in Disney’s
live-action, musical adaptation of Beauty and the Beast.
She co-stars with Brendan Gleeson and Daniel Brühl in Alone
in Berlin, an English-language adaptation of Hans Fallada’s novel,
directed by Vincent Perez, which premiered at the 2016 Berlin Film
Festival.
Thompson’s 2015 film appearances include The Legend of Barney
Thomson, opposite Robert Carlyle and Ray Winstone, for which she won
the Scottish BAFTA Best Actress Award; A Walk in the Woods,
opposite Robert Redford and Nick Nolte; and Burnt, which
starred Bradley Cooper.
In March 2014, to the delight of both critics and audiences, she
portrayed Mrs. Lovett in the New York Philharmonic’s staged production
of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street, opposite bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, in the title role. The
production marked Thompson’s New York Philharmonic debut, New York
stage debut and first time performing the role. In spring 2015, she and
Terfel reprised their roles in a sold-out, limited run at the London
Coliseum with the English National Opera, for its first ever season of
musical theater.
In September 2014, Penguin Press published “The Spectacular Tale of
Peter Rabbit,” the third in the series written by Thompson. To
celebrate the 110th anniversary of Peter Rabbit,
Thompson was commissioned to write the 24th tale in the
existing collection of Peter Rabbit stories. It marked the first time
that Frederick Warne & Co, the publisher, had published an
additional title to the series, which Beatrix Potter wrote between 1902
and 1930. The book, entitled “The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit” was
published in September 2012 to great critical acclaim and, in October
2013, Penguin published “The Christmas Tale of Peter Rabbit.”
Thompson’s feature film debut came in 1989 when she starred opposite
Jeff Goldblum in the comedy The Tall Guy. Her other film
credits include Henry V, Dead Again, Peter’s
Friends, Much Ado About Nothing, Junior, Carrington, The
Winter Guest, Imagining Argentina, Primary
Colors, Stranger Than Fiction, Last Chance Harvey (Golden
Globe nomination as Best Actress), The Love Punch, Pixar’s
Academy Award®-winning animated film Brave and Men
in Black 3.
In 2010, she reprised the title role of the magical Nanny McPhee
in Nanny McPhee Returns, for which she also wrote the
screenplay and acted as an executive producer. Thompson created the
character for the screen originally in 2005, in her own adaptation
of Nanny McPhee, directed by Kirk Jones.
In 2004, she brought to the screen J.K. Rowling’s character of Sybil
Trelawney in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,
for director Alfonso Cuarón and, in 2007, she reprised the role
in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for director
David Yates.
For director Mike Nichols, she starred in the HBO telefilms Wit (2001,
in a Golden Globe-Award nominated performance) and Angels in
America (2002, SAG Award and Primetime Emmy Award nominations).
For her performance in the BBC Two television production of Christopher
Reid’s narrative poem The Song of Lunch, opposite Alan
Rickman, Thompson was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 2012 (in
the U.S. it aired on “Masterpiece” on PBS). That same year, she
portrayed Elizabeth II in the Sprout/Sky Arts production Walking
the Dogs.
Throughout the 1980s, Thompson frequently appeared on British
television, including widely acclaimed recurring roles on the Granada TV
series Alfresco, BBC’s Election Night Special and The
Crystal Cube (the latter written by fellow Cambridge alums
Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), and a hilarious one-off role as
upper-class twit Miss Money-Sterling on The Young Ones. In
1985, Channel 4 offered Thompson her own television special Up
for Grabs and in 1988, she wrote and starred in her own BBC
series called Thompson. She worked as a stand-up comic when
the opportunity arose, and earned £60 in cash on her 25th birthday
in a stand-up double bill with Ben Elton at the Croydon Warehouse. She
says it’s the best money she’s ever earned.
Thompson was born in London to Eric Thompson, a theatre director and
writer, and Phyllida Law, an actress. She studied English at Cambridge
and was invited to join the university’s long-standing Footlights
comedy troupe, which elected her vice president. Hugh Laurie was
president. While still a student, she co-directed Cambridge’s first
all-women revue Women’s Hour, made her television debut on
BBC-TV’s Friday Night and Saturday Morning,
as well as her radio debut on BBC Radio’s Injury Time.
She continued to pursue an active stage career concurrently with her
television and radio work, appearing in A Sense of Nonsense touring
England in 1982; the self-penned Short Vehicle at the
Edinburgh Festival in 1984, Me and My Girl first at
Leicester Haymarket Theater and then London’s West End in 1985,
and Look Back in Anger at the Lyric Theatre,
Shaftesbury Avenue in 1989.
Thompson is president of the Helen Bamber Foundation, a U.K.-based human
rights organization, formed in April 2005, to help rebuild the lives of,
and inspire a new self-esteem in, survivors of gross human rights
violations. On behalf of the foundation, Thompson co-curated
“Journey,” an interactive art installation, which used seven
transport containers to illustrate the brutal and harrowing experiences
of women sold into the sex trade. Thompson and “Journey”
traveled to London, Vienna, Madrid, New York and the Netherlands for
exhibitions and interviews.
Last year, Thompson joined Greenpeace on their Save the Arctic campaign.
She is also an Ambassador for the international development agency
ActionAid and has spoken out publicly about her support for the work the
Non-governmental organization is doing, in particular, in addressing the
HIV/AIDS epidemic that continues to sweep across Africa. She has been
affiliated with the organization since 2000 and thus far has visited
ActionAid projects in Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, South Africa,
Liberia and Myanmar.
Thompson has served as president of the Teaching Awards since 2009. The
awards are open to every education establishment in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland teaching pupils between the ages of three and 18, to
nominate and celebrate teachers (and schools) who transform lives and
help young people realize their potential. She is a patron of the
Refugee Council and also patron of Edinburgh College’s Performing Arts
Studio of Scotland.
|