MIRANDA RICHARDSON
Name: Miranda Jane Richardson
Born: 3 March 1958 Southport, Merseyside, England
Miranda Jane Richardson (born 3 March 1958) is an Academy Award-nominated, BAFTA-
and Golden Globe Award-winning English stage, film and television actress.
Richardson was born in Southport, Merseyside, England, the daughter of Marian
Georgina (née Townsend), a housewife, and William Alan Richardson, a marketing
executive. The second daughter in a middle-class family, she revealed a
talent for acting from an early age. She had originally intended to study
veterinary medicine, but her squeamishness made this impractical.
She enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where she studied alongside
Daniel Day-Lewis. In 1981, she made her stage debut in Moving at the Queen's
Theatre in London. Before making a name for herself as a screen star, she
enjoyed a hugely successful and extensive theatre career. Starting out with
juvenile performances in Cinderella (the title role) and Lord Arthur Saville's
Crime (as Sybil Merton) at the Southport Dramatic Club, the young thespian
enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, making her stage debut in Moving
at the Queen's Theatre, London. Soon afterwards, she appeared in repertory
theatre, until she found recognition in the West End for a series of highly
praised stage performances, ultimately receiving an Olivier Award nomination for
her performance in A Lie of the Mind, and in 1996 being cited as 'the greatest
actress of our time in any medium' by one critic after she appeared in Orlando
at the Edinburgh Festival.
In 1985, she made her big screen debut as platinum blonde nightclub hostess Ruth
Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom in Mike Newell's
critically acclaimed biographical drama, Dance With A Stranger. Her performance
won her much praise, and within a year she had been cast by Steven Spielberg to
appear in his World War II drama Empire of the Sun (1987).
Richardson is well known for her role as infantile Queen Elizabeth I, aka
Queenie, in the British television comedy Blackadder II. Her portrayal of a
troubled theatre-goer in Secret Friends (BBC 2 TV, 1990) was described as "a
miniature tour de force... Miranda Richardson's finest hour, all in ten minutes"
(The Sunday Times). Other television roles include the bitchy Pamela Flitton in
A Dance to the Music of Time (1997), Miss Gilchrist in St. Ives (1998), Bettina
the obsessive-compulsive interior decorator in Absolutely Fabulous, the sadistic
Queen Elspeth in Hallmark's Snow White: The Fairest Of Them All (2001), and the
emotionally repressed Queen Mary in The Lost Prince (2003).
She has appeared in a number, of high profile supporting roles in the cinema,
including Vanessa Bell in The Hours, Lady Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow and Patsy
Carpenter in The Evening Star. She has also won acclaim for her performances in
The Crying Game and Enchanted April, for which she won a Golden Globe, beating a
quartet of Hollywood heavyweights: Geena Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, Shirley
MacLaine and Meryl Streep.
Two Academy Award nominations (for Damage and Tom & Viv) have not altered the
actress's modesty. She refuses to discuss her private life in interviews, and
takes both leading and supporting roles in a variety of different genres.
Her extensive film credits include stints in a number of critically acclaimed
independent features, among them Robert Altman's Kansas City (1996), Robert
Duvall's The Apostle (1997) and Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah (2005). In 2002,
Richardson performed a triple-role stint alongside Ralph Fiennes in David
Cronenberg's acclaimed thriller Spider, a film that won her several
international critics awards.
More recently, Richardson appeared as Queen Rosalind of Denmark in the Julia
Stiles vehicle The Prince and Me, and as the ballet mistress Madame Giry in the
long-awaited film version of The Phantom Of The Opera, starring Gerard Butler
and Emmy Rossum. She has also reprised her role as Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder
for both a Christmas Special (Blackadder's Christmas Carol 1988), and a special
edition for the Millennium (Blackadder: Back and Forth, 2000) which was
originally screened at the Millennium Dome. In 2005 she appeared in the high
profile role of Rita Skeeter, the toxic Daily Prophet journalist in Harry Potter
And The Goblet Of Fire, and has since appeared in a number of critically
acclaimed but low-profile feature films. In 2006 she appeared alongside Bill
Nighy in Stephen Poliakoff's multi-Golden Globe winning BBC drama, Gideon's
Daughter.
Richardson participated in several conservational television shows including
Final Chance to Save and Extinct in 2006. She returned to the big screen in
November 2007, playing the role of Mrs. Claus in Fred Claus (2007) opposite
Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti. In addition, she teamed up alongside Absolutely
Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders in The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle a BBC
sitcom.
Name: Miranda Jane Richardson
Born: 3 March 1958 Southport, Merseyside, England
Miranda Jane Richardson (born 3 March 1958) is an Academy Award-nominated, BAFTA-
and Golden Globe Award-winning English stage, film and television actress.
Richardson was born in Southport, Merseyside, England, the daughter of Marian
Georgina (née Townsend), a housewife, and William Alan Richardson, a marketing
executive. The second daughter in a middle-class family, she revealed a
talent for acting from an early age. She had originally intended to study
veterinary medicine, but her squeamishness made this impractical.
She enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, where she studied alongside
Daniel Day-Lewis. In 1981, she made her stage debut in Moving at the Queen's
Theatre in London. Before making a name for herself as a screen star, she
enjoyed a hugely successful and extensive theatre career. Starting out with
juvenile performances in Cinderella (the title role) and Lord Arthur Saville's
Crime (as Sybil Merton) at the Southport Dramatic Club, the young thespian
enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, making her stage debut in Moving
at the Queen's Theatre, London. Soon afterwards, she appeared in repertory
theatre, until she found recognition in the West End for a series of highly
praised stage performances, ultimately receiving an Olivier Award nomination for
her performance in A Lie of the Mind, and in 1996 being cited as 'the greatest
actress of our time in any medium' by one critic after she appeared in Orlando
at the Edinburgh Festival.
In 1985, she made her big screen debut as platinum blonde nightclub hostess Ruth
Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom in Mike Newell's
critically acclaimed biographical drama, Dance With A Stranger. Her performance
won her much praise, and within a year she had been cast by Steven Spielberg to
appear in his World War II drama Empire of the Sun (1987).
Richardson is well known for her role as infantile Queen Elizabeth I, aka
Queenie, in the British television comedy Blackadder II. Her portrayal of a
troubled theatre-goer in Secret Friends (BBC 2 TV, 1990) was described as "a
miniature tour de force... Miranda Richardson's finest hour, all in ten minutes"
(The Sunday Times). Other television roles include the bitchy Pamela Flitton in
A Dance to the Music of Time (1997), Miss Gilchrist in St. Ives (1998), Bettina
the obsessive-compulsive interior decorator in Absolutely Fabulous, the sadistic
Queen Elspeth in Hallmark's Snow White: The Fairest Of Them All (2001), and the
emotionally repressed Queen Mary in The Lost Prince (2003).
She has appeared in a number, of high profile supporting roles in the cinema,
including Vanessa Bell in The Hours, Lady Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow and Patsy
Carpenter in The Evening Star. She has also won acclaim for her performances in
The Crying Game and Enchanted April, for which she won a Golden Globe, beating a
quartet of Hollywood heavyweights: Geena Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, Shirley
MacLaine and Meryl Streep.
Two Academy Award nominations (for Damage and Tom & Viv) have not altered the
actress's modesty. She refuses to discuss her private life in interviews, and
takes both leading and supporting roles in a variety of different genres.
Her extensive film credits include stints in a number of critically acclaimed
independent features, among them Robert Altman's Kansas City (1996), Robert
Duvall's The Apostle (1997) and Richard E. Grant's Wah-Wah (2005). In 2002,
Richardson performed a triple-role stint alongside Ralph Fiennes in David
Cronenberg's acclaimed thriller Spider, a film that won her several
international critics awards.
More recently, Richardson appeared as Queen Rosalind of Denmark in the Julia
Stiles vehicle The Prince and Me, and as the ballet mistress Madame Giry in the
long-awaited film version of The Phantom Of The Opera, starring Gerard Butler
and Emmy Rossum. She has also reprised her role as Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder
for both a Christmas Special (Blackadder's Christmas Carol 1988), and a special
edition for the Millennium (Blackadder: Back and Forth, 2000) which was
originally screened at the Millennium Dome. In 2005 she appeared in the high
profile role of Rita Skeeter, the toxic Daily Prophet journalist in Harry Potter
And The Goblet Of Fire, and has since appeared in a number of critically
acclaimed but low-profile feature films. In 2006 she appeared alongside Bill
Nighy in Stephen Poliakoff's multi-Golden Globe winning BBC drama, Gideon's
Daughter.
Richardson participated in several conservational television shows including
Final Chance to Save and Extinct in 2006. She returned to the big screen in
November 2007, playing the role of Mrs. Claus in Fred Claus (2007) opposite
Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti. In addition, she teamed up alongside Absolutely
Fabulous star Jennifer Saunders in The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle a BBC
sitcom.