Emily Anita Watson (born 14 January 1967) is an Oscar nominated English actress best known for her acclaimed debut film performance in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves.
Watson was born in Islington, London, England, the daughter of an architect and an English professor. She trained at Drama Studio London. She married Jack Waters, whom she had met at the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 1995; their daughter, Juliet, was born in autumn 2005.
Watson was a virtual unknown until director Lars von Trier chose her to star in his controversial Breaking the Waves after the first choice, Helena Bonham Carter, dropped out over the uncompromisingly bleak eroticism the role demanded. Her performance as Bess McNeill, a simple yet devout woman who slips into prostitution because she believes it will heal her paralysed husband, was her first in front of a camera, and became the most critically acclaimed of 1996. She won the Los Angeles, London and New York Critics Circle Awards, the US National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, and ultimately an Oscar nomination.
She came to public notice again in another controversial role, as cellist Jacqueline du Pre in Hilary and Jackie, for which she learned to play the cello herself, and received another Oscar nomination. Despite this, many of du Pre's friends and fans decried the film's portrayal of her as inaccurate and unfair. She also played a leading role in Cradle Will Rock, a story of a theatre show in the 1930's, directed by Tim Robbins. Though she won the title role of Frank McCourt's mother in the adaptation of his much-loved memoir, Angela's Ashes, the film underperformed. Later, she appeared as a member of Robert Altman's ensemble piece Gosford Park.
In 2002 she starred as Reba McClane in the adaptation of Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs prequel, Red Dragon, as the romantic interest of Adam Sandler in Paul Thomas Anderson's curious and quirky Punch-Drunk Love, and in the sci-fi action thriller Equilibrium alongside Christian Bale.
The following year she took time off from the cinema to play two roles in Sam Mendes's dovetailed stage productions of Uncle Vanya and Twelfth Night, first at Mendes's Donmar Warehouse in London and later at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Her performance was widely acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic and garnered her an Olivier Award nomination.
In 2004 she received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Peter Sellers's first wife, Anne Howe, in the HBO movie, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.
2005 saw her starring in four films: Wah-Wah, Richard E. Grant's autobiographical directorial debut, for which she attended the UK premiere at the Edinburgh Festival; Separate Lies, directed by Gosford Park writer Julian Fellowes; Tim Burton's animated film Corpse Bride, alongside Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, and Nick Cave's Australian-set western, The Proposition.
In 2006 she took a supporting role in Miss Potter, a biopic of children's author Beatrix Potter from Babe director Chris Noonan, with Ewan McGregor and Renée Zellweger. Her upcoming projects include an adaptation of Thea Beckman's children's novel Crusade in Jeans, The Waterhorse, an adaptation of the Dick King-Smith children's novel about the origin of the Loch Ness Monster, starring with Julia Roberts and Carrie-Ann Moss in Fireflies in the Garden, and a new film about anarchic fictional girls' school St. Trinians, with Rupert Everett and Colin Firth.
Emily Watson is a committed supporter of the British children's charity, the NSPCC. In 2004 she was inducted into the society's hall of fame for spearheading the successful campaign to appoint a Children's Commissioner for England. Receiving her award in the crowded House of Commons, she spoke out against the possibility that the Children's Commissioner become a figurehead with little real power.[10]
Emily Watson has often had as much impact with the roles she didn't get as with those she did. Most notably, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet wrote the character Amélie for her (Amélie was originally named Emily) but she eventually turned the role down due to difficulties working in French and a desire not to be away from home. The role went on to make an international star of Audrey Tautou.[11] She was also the first choice to play Elizabeth I in Shekhar Kapur's film Elizabeth, the role that ultimately made a star of Cate Blanchett.[12]
