Kate Beckinsale

• 1. Introduction

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  Kate Beckinsale was four years old when she appeared in a 1977 episode of This Is Your Life, a programme honouring her father, the actor Richard Beckinsale. She did not choose that moment, and she did not yet know what acting would ask of her. Decades later she is an English actress with credits that stretch from Jane Austen heroines to vampire warriors, and from grand studio epics to films that almost nobody saw. How did a girl raised among actors, directors and left-wing politics end up walking away from Oxford? Why did an actress praised for period drama build her fame in leather and fangs? And what does it cost to keep returning to small, personal films while the large ones pay the bills?

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• 2. Childhood and Oxford

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  Kathrin Romany Beckinsale was born on the 26th of July 1973 in Isleworth, London. She was the only child of the actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe. Her half-sister Samantha, from her father's earlier marriage, is also an actress. Her father was partly of Burmese descent. Her parents did not marry until 1977, shortly before she started nursery school. Her own screen debut came earlier still. In 1975 she appeared in the series premiere of the daytime drama Couples, credited as Kathrin Beckinsale.

  She was five when her father died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 31. The loss left her deeply traumatised. She has said that afterwards she "started expecting bad things to happen".

  When she was nine, her widowed mother moved in with the director Roy Battersby. Beckinsale grew up alongside his four sons and daughter, and she became close to her stepfather. During her youth he belonged to the Workers Revolutionary Party. As a little girl she helped sell The News Line, a Trotskyist newspaper. She has said the household phone was tapped after the BBC blacklisted Battersby. Ken Loach and Vanessa Redgrave were among the family friends who passed through.

  She went to Godolphin and Latymer School, an independent girls' school in Hammersmith, West London. She took part in the Orange Tree Youth Theatre and twice won the WH Smith Young Writers Award, for both fiction and poetry. She calls herself a "late bloomer" and once recalled how her friends were "kissing boys and drinking cider way before me". At fifteen she had a nervous breakdown and developed anorexia. She then underwent four years of Freudian psychoanalysis.

  Russian was one of her school subjects, and she went on to read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford. Her contemporary Victoria Coren Mitchell later described her as "whip-clever, slightly nuts, and very charming." At Oxford she befriended Kirsty, the daughter of the actor Roy Kinnear. She also joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society. Fellow student Tom Hooper directed her in A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse.

  As a Modern Languages student, she had to spend her third year abroad, so she studied in Paris. She then quit university to concentrate on acting. "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high pressure," she explained. She has said she would still like to complete her degree.

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• 3. Costume Dramas

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  In 1991, Beckinsale took a small part in an ITV adaptation of P. D. James's Devices and Desires. She had decided young that acting was her path. "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," she recalled. The performances of Jeanne Moreau inspired her. In 1992 she starred with Christopher Eccleston in Rachel's Dream, a 30-minute short for Channel 4. A year later she appeared in the pilot of the ITV detective series Anna Lee, starring Imogen Stubbs.

  Kenneth Branagh cast her as Hero in his 1993 film of Much Ado About Nothing. It was shot in Tuscany, Italy, during a summer holiday from Oxford. She attended the Cannes Film Festival premiere and found it overwhelming. "Nobody even told me I could bring a friend!" she said. "I had Doc Martens boots on, and I think I put the flower from the breakfast tray in my hair." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called her performance "lovely". Vincent Canby of The New York Times thought she and Robert Sean Leonard looked right and played with sincerity, though both seemed stunned by the dense language. The film grossed over $22 million.

  In 1994 she played Christian Bale's love interest in Prince of Jutland, based on the Danish legend that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet. She also starred in the murder mystery Uncovered. While studying in Paris in 1995, she filmed the French-language Marie-Louise ou la permission.

  Shortly after leaving Oxford in 1995, she starred in Cold Comfort Farm as Flora Poste, a newly orphaned 1930s socialite sent to live with distant relatives in rural England. John Schlesinger directed. The cast included Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Rufus Sewell and Stephen Fry. Beckinsale was first judged too young for the part, and she won it by writing the director a pleading letter. Emanuel Levy of Variety saw in her the strength of a young Glenda Jackson and the charm of a young Julie Christie. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said she played Flora with "the perfect snippy aplomb." The film grossed over $5 million in the United States.

  Her first professional stage role also came in 1995, as Nina in Chekhov's The Seagull at Theatre Royal, Bath. There she met her co-star Michael Sheen at rehearsals. "I was all revved up to feel very intimidated," she said, adding that she called him "the most outrageously talented person I've ever met." Irving Wardle of The Independent praised the casting, noting Sheen's "volcanic Kostya" and her "steadily freezing Nina." In early 1996 she starred in Sweetheart at the Royal Court Theatre and in Clocks and Whistles at the Bush Theatre.

  In autumn 1996, ITV aired her Emma, with Mark Strong as Mr Knightley and Samantha Morton as Harriet Smith. The broadcast came only months after Gwyneth Paltrow starred in a film of the same story. "You shouldn't necessarily like Emma," Beckinsale said. Caryn James of The New York Times found her plainer than Paltrow but more believable and funnier. Jonathan Brown of The Independent later called it "the most enduring modern performance" as Emma.

  Shooting Fish, her 1997 comedy opposite Stuart Townsend, was among the most commercially successful British films of that year. She had auditioned just after having her wisdom teeth out, and she was on strong painkillers. She also narrated Austen's Emma for Hodder & Stoughton AudioBooks and Diana Hendry's The Proposal for BBC Radio 4. Sheen directed an audio Romeo and Juliet in which she played Juliet. Her last British film before leaving was Channel 4's Alice Through the Looking-Glass, released in July 1998. Her next auditions would be in New York.

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• 4. Hollywood Years

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  The move to the United States, Beckinsale insists, began without a plan. She said it was not "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."

  The Last Days of Disco, released in 1998, paired her with Chloë Sevigny in Whit Stillman's story of mostly Ivy League and Hampshire College graduates in the early-1980s Manhattan disco scene. Beckinsale played the bossy Charlotte, and her American accent drew wide praise. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times found the performance "beautifully played." Todd McCarthy of Variety disliked the film but admired her in a string of black dresses, adding that the character could grate even if the actress did not. She won a London Critics' Circle Film Award. The film grossed $3 million worldwide.

  In 1999 she appeared opposite Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace, about two young Americans facing the Thai justice system after a graduation trip. Beckinsale was 26 and playing a much younger girl. Danes had hoped they would become friends but found her "complicated" and "prickly." McCarthy called both leads worth watching, while Kevin Thomas felt the underdeveloped script defeated their efforts. The film was a box office failure.

  The Golden Bowl, in 2000, was her first role after her daughter's birth. This Merchant/Ivory adaptation of Henry James's novel also starred Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam. During filming, Michael Sheen hit Northam after Northam followed Beckinsale to her trailer to scold her for forgetting a line. Stephen Holden of The New York Times judged the British actors, Beckinsale and Northam, better than their American counterparts at layers of emotional concealment. The film grossed over $5 million worldwide.

  Pearl Harbor made her famous in 2001. She played a nurse torn between two pilots, played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. The script appealed because it offered "movie values" rather than modern cynicism, a big, sweeping epic of the old-fashioned kind. Director Michael Bay later said he had doubts after her screen test, where she wore black leather trousers. He decided to hire her because she was not "too beautiful." He also asked her to lose weight during filming.

  In 2004 she called his comments "upsetting" and said she wore the leather because it was snowing. She felt lucky not to have faced such remarks when younger, since she lacked the confidence then to put them in perspective. By 2011 she said she was "very fond" of Bay. Reviews were negative, though Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised her intelligence. Even so, the film grossed $449 million worldwide.

  Serendipity, with John Cusack, was filmed straight afterwards, and she found it "a real relief to return to something slightly more familiar." Turan said she reinforced the impression she made in Cold Comfort Farm. Roger Ebert, in a negative review, called her "a good actress, but not good enough to play this dumb." The film grossed over $77 million worldwide.

  In 2002 she starred in Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon as a strait-laced academic drawn to her free-spirited future mother-in-law. It reunited her with Christian Bale. She found their sex scene awkward because she knew him well, saying, "If it was a stranger, it would have been easier." Frances McDormand won praise as Bale's mother, but Beckinsale received negative reviews. The film grossed over $4 million worldwide. Her next film would ask her to learn to fight.

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• 5. Selene and Studio Films

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  Underworld, in 2003, cast Beckinsale as a vampire and changed how audiences saw her. She welcomed it after what she called "a bunch of period stuff and then a bunch of romantic comedies." She also admitted that playing an action heroine was daunting, since in real life she "can't catch a ball if it's coming my way." Reviews were negative to mixed, but the film was a surprise box-office hit and gained a cult following. She later said she took the part because she felt typecast in classical roles, with people assuming she "uses a chamber pot and wears bloomers." Her action career, she added, "kind of took off a little too much."

  Van Helsing followed in 2004. She was "so surprised" to be in a second action film within two years. She had just separated from Michael Sheen, and she credited director Stephen Sommers and co-star Hugh Jackman with making that period bearable. The film grossed over $120 million in the United States and over $300 million worldwide, despite poor reviews. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle thought she was trying to keep her dignity, and Rex Reed of The New York Observer felt she badly needed a new agent.

  That same year Martin Scorsese cast her as Ava Gardner in The Aviator, a film about Howard Hughes. He said he had always liked her work and was glad she agreed to audition. Reviews split. Ken Tucker of New York Magazine praised her "va-va-voom blossom," while Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian thought she sleepwalked through it as if advertising perfume. The film grossed over $213 million worldwide.

  In 2006 she returned as Selene in Underworld: Evolution, directed by her husband Len Wiseman. It was the first time she had been involved from the germ of an idea through the whole edit. Her daughter played a young Selene in a small role. The film grossed $111 million worldwide. Her second 2006 release was Click, a comedy with Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken, in which she played a mother. It grossed $237 million against a production budget of $82.5 million.

  Whiteout, in 2009, made her a US Marshal investigating a murder in Antarctica. It was filmed in Manitoba, Canada. She found it easier than Underworld because "three pairs of trousers and a parka gives you a bit more protection than the latex suit." The film was panned and failed to recoup its budget. She also made a cameo in Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, built from footage from the first film.

  In 2012 she appeared in three action films. In Contraband, she played the wife of Mark Wahlberg's character, and the film grossed over $96 million on a $25 million budget. She had not intended to do another Underworld film, since the series was first conceived as a trilogy, but a strong script persuaded her to make Underworld: Awakening. It cost $70 million and grossed over $160 million. Total Recall, directed by Wiseman, cast her as a factory worker's wife. He joined the remake, she said, because he could not get financing for an original sci-fi idea. The film grossed $198 million against a budget of over $125 million.

  The fifth Underworld film, Underworld: Blood Wars, arrived in late 2016 and grossed $81.1 million worldwide. On the 23rd of July 2021, Amazon Studios released her action comedy Jolt, with Bobby Cannavale, Laverne Cox, Stanley Tucci and Jai Courtney. Tanya Wexler directed from a screenplay by Scott Wascha.

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• 6. Small Films, Small Audiences

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  Snow Angels, in 2007, sent Beckinsale back to independent film. She played an overwhelmed single mother opposite Sam Rockwell, in a story adapted from Stewart O'Nan's novel. The film was harrowing, and she was grateful to come home to her child, her husband and her ex. Richard Corliss of Time called it her sharpest work yet. A. O. Scott doubted that so poised a woman would end up with the character Glenn. The film grossed only $414,404 worldwide.

  She also made Vacancy, a thriller set in an isolated motel, with Luke Wilson. Sarah Jessica Parker had been cast first but dropped out before filming. It grossed $35 million against a $19 million budget. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times was unimpressed and called her "the reigning queen of the bland B's."

  In 2008 she joined an ensemble including Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker in Winged Creatures, about six witnesses coping with a shooting. She played a waitressing single mother, and the shoot left her feeling "shot through a cannon." It received a very limited release in New York and Los Angeles, and came out on DVD the same day.

  Nothing but the Truth, also from 2008, was inspired by the case of Judith Miller. Beckinsale played a journalist who refuses to reveal her source. She spent time with female reporters at the Los Angeles Times and spoke to Miller herself. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post called her and Vera Farmiga two of the most fascinating female screen characters in a long while, and Beckinsale earned a Critic's Choice Award nomination. Then the distributor filed for bankruptcy and the film never received a full theatrical release. It grossed only $186,702. "I have prayed - prayed - for film companies to go bankrupt on films I've made, and then this happens on the one I love," she said.

  Everybody's Fine, in 2009, put her beside Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore and Rockwell. It flopped. In May 2010 she sat on the nine-member Cannes Film Festival jury chaired by Tim Burton. With no script that excited her, she kept a low profile in 2010 and 2011 to spend time with her daughter.

  The years from 2013 to 2015 brought uneven results. The Trials of Cate McCall, with Nick Nolte and James Cromwell, got negative reviews and aired as a Lifetime movie. Stonehearst Asylum, loosely based on an Edgar Allan Poe story, was little seen. The Face of an Angel, directed by Michael Winterbottom, was inspired by the case of Meredith Kercher. In 2014 she voiced Queen Ayrenn in The Elder Scrolls Online. In Absolutely Anything she played the love interest of Simon Pegg's character, chosen by four aliens to do anything he wants.

  Love & Friendship, premiering at Sundance in 2016, brought her back together with Whit Stillman and Chloë Sevigny. Adapted from Jane Austen's Lady Susan, it gave her the role of a wry, calculating widow who ends up marrying the wealthy man she first pursued for her daughter. Critics acclaimed the film universally, and it succeeded in arthouse cinemas. Justin Chang of Variety called it one of the most satisfying roles of her career. That year's horror film The Disappointments Room was heavily panned, opening to $1.4 million and ending at $2.4 million in North America.

  In The Only Living Boy in New York (2017) she played a book editor, and in 2018 she appeared in the British film Farming. The Widow, in 2019, was her first TV series in more than 20 years. She played a woman who believes her husband, supposedly killed in a plane crash, is alive in the Congo. In 2021 she starred in the Paramount+ dark comedy Guilty Party and served as an executive producer. That year Deadline announced she would star in Catherine Hardwicke's family drama Prisoner's Daughter.

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• 7. Love, Press and Court

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  Beckinsale and Michael Sheen were a couple from 1995 to 2003. They met in a touring production of The Seagull in early 1995 and moved in together soon after. Their daughter was born in 1999. In 2001 Beckinsale said she was "embarrassed" that Sheen never proposed, though she felt married. They broke up in early 2003, after Underworld was filmed. They remain close friends. In 2016 she called him "really dear, close family" and said she had known him since she was 21.

  On Underworld she met the American director Len Wiseman. She had persuaded him to cast Sheen in the film, but on set she and Wiseman fell in love. His then-wife Dana, a kindergarten teacher, accused him of infidelity with Beckinsale. The couple married on the 9th of May 2004 in Bel-Air, California. They separated in November 2015. Wiseman filed for divorce in 2016, citing "irreconcilable differences," and it was finalised in November 2019. She briefly dated the comedian Matt Rife in 2017 and 2018, and the comedian Pete Davidson from January to April 2019.

  Her private life also reached the courts and press regulators. In July 2003 the Press Complaints Commission dismissed her complaint against the Daily Mail. The paper had published photographs of her kissing Wiseman beside her then four-year-old daughter, under the headline "Mummy's latest love scene leaves Lily unimpressed." The Commission found the photographs were taken in public and revealed no private details about the child.

  In August 2003 she won a published apology from the Daily Mail, which had claimed she "spent time in a clinic" after her break-up with Sheen. In 2009 the British High Court awarded her damages against Express Newspapers. The Daily Express had falsely reported she was "facing heartbreak" after losing a role in a remake of Barbarella.

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• 8. Beyond the Screen

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  The BBC labelled her an "English rose" as early as 2001, and she has modelled occasionally. In 1997 she appeared in George Michael's music video for "Waltz Away Dreaming." In 2002 she starred opposite Orlando Bloom in a Gap television advertisement directed by Cameron Crowe. Michel Gondry directed her 2004 Diet Coke commercial. In 2009 she appeared in an Absolut Vodka print campaign photographed by Ellen von Unwerth. She also gave silent performances in music videos for Serge Gainsbourg's "Rollergirl" in 2008 and Jet's "Goodbye Hollywood" in 2009.

  In 2003 she said, "I've never been drunk even. I've never taken drugs. I've never had a one-night-stand." She does smoke, having been introduced to cigarettes by Roy Battersby's sons when she was nine.

  Her politics have surfaced in short online films. In 2007 she appeared with David Schwimmer in the sixth Project "Speechless" video, supporting the Writers Guild of America strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. In 2012 she joined Judy Greer and Andrea Savage in a Funny or Die satire of Republican policies on abortion and prenatal care.

  Her mother died when Beckinsale was fifty-one, of stage-four cancer, aged 78. "She died the night of July 15 in my arms after immeasurable suffering," Beckinsale said.

  In 2008 she hosted the fourth annual Pink Party to raise money for the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and she organised a screening of All About Eve for FilmAid International. In 2012 she joined Nestle's Share the Joy of Reading Program to promote literacy. She has donated film memorabilia to several charities, including MediCinema and Habitat For Humanity. Her charity of choice, however, is the British Heart Foundation, which she has supported since she was six years old.

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