Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. The only child of the actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe, she debuted in the series premiere of the 1975 daytime drama Couples.
In 1993, she made her theatrical film debut with a role in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation Much Ado About Nothing whilst studying at the University of Oxford. She played leading roles in numerous British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995) and Emma (1996). She also starred in Pearl Harbor (2001) and Serendipity (2001).
A starring role as Selene in the Underworld film series (2003–2016) propelled Beckinsale into action movies and starring roles in bigger budget films. Major releases have included The Aviator (2004), Van Helsing (2004), and Total Recall (2012). Beckinsale has continued to earn praise for her roles in small-scale dramas such as Snow Angels (2007), Love & Friendship (2016), and The Only Living Boy in New York (2017). She returned to television in the limited series The Widow (2019).
Early life and education Kathrin Romany Beckinsale was born on 26 July 1973 in Isleworth, London. She is the only child of actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe. Her half-sister from her father's earlier marriage is actress Samantha Beckinsale. Her father was partly of Burmese descent. Her parents did not marry until 1977, prior to Beckinsale starting nursery school, when she made her first television appearance at age four, in an episode of This Is Your Life, dedicated to her father. When she was five, her father died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 31. She was deeply traumatised by the loss and "started expecting bad things to happen".
Her widowed mother moved in with director Roy Battersby when Beckinsale was nine and she was brought up alongside his four sons and daughter. She had a close relationship with her stepfather, who was a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party during her youth. She helped to sell The News Line, a Trotskyist newspaper, as a little girl and has said the household phone was tapped following Battersby's blacklisting by the BBC. Family friends included Ken Loach and Vanessa Redgrave.
Beckinsale was educated at Godolphin and Latymer School, an independent school for girls in Hammersmith, West London, and was involved with the Orange Tree Youth Theatre. She was twice a winner of the WH Smith Young Writers Award for both fiction and poetry. She has described herself as a "late bloomer": "All of my friends were kissing boys and drinking cider way before me. I found it really depressing that we weren't making camp fires and everyone was doing stuff like that." She had a nervous breakdown and developed anorexia aged 15, and underwent Freudian psychoanalysis for four years.
Beckinsale studied Russian at school and read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford, and was later described by her contemporary Victoria Coren Mitchell, as "whip-clever, slightly nuts, and very charming." She became friends with Roy Kinnear's daughter Kirsty. She was involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, most notably being directed by fellow student Tom Hooper in a production of A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse. As a Modern Languages student, she was required to spend her third year abroad, and studied in Paris. She then quit university to focus on her burgeoning acting career: "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high pressure." Beckinsale has stated she would like to complete her studies at the University of Oxford.
When Beckinsale was fifty-one, her mother died of stage-four cancer, aged 78. Beckinsale said: "She died the night of July 15 in my arms after immeasurable suffering."
Career 1991–1997: Early acting roles Beckinsale decided at a young age she wanted to be an actress: "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 was inspired by the performances of Jeanne Moreau. She made her television debut in 1991 with a small part in an ITV adaptation of P. D. James' Devices and Desires. In 1992, she starred alongside Christopher Eccleston in "Rachel's Dream," a 30‑minute Channel 4 short. In 1993, she appeared in the pilot of the ITV detective series, Anna Lee, starring Imogen Stubbs.
In 1993, Beckinsale landed the role of Hero in Kenneth Branagh's big-screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. It was filmed in Tuscany, Italy, during a summer holiday from the University of Oxford. She attended the film's Cannes Film Festival premiere and remembered it as an overwhelming experience. "Nobody even told me I could bring a friend!" "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 was won over by her "lovely" performance. Vincent Canby of The New York Times noted that she and Robert Sean Leonard "look right and behave with a certain naive sincerity, although they often seem numb with surprise at hearing the complex locutions they speak." The film grossed over $22 million at the box office.
She made three other films while at university. In 1994, she appeared as Christian Bale's love interest in Prince of Jutland, a film based on the Danish legend which inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet, and starred in the murder mystery Uncovered. In 1995, while studying in Paris, she filmed the French language Marie-Louise ou la permission.
Shortly after leaving Oxford University in 1995, Beckinsale starred in Cold Comfort Farm, as Flora Poste, a newly orphaned 1930s socialite sent to live with distant family members in rural England. The John Schlesinger-directed film was an adaptation of Stella Gibbons's novel and also featured Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Rufus Sewell and Stephen Fry. Beckinsale was initially considered too young, but was cast after she wrote a pleading letter to the director. Emanuel Levy of Variety was reminded of "the strength of a young Glenda Jackson and the charm of a young Julie Christie." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times classed the actress as "yet another of those effortlessly skilled British beauties who light up the screen." Janet Maslin of The New York Times felt she played the role "with the perfect snippy aplomb." The film grossed over $5 million at the US box office.
Also in 1995, she appeared in Haunted, a ghost story in which Derek Elley of Variety felt she "holds the screen, with both physical looks and verbal poise." 1995 saw Beckinsale's first professional stage appearance, as Nina in The Seagull at Theatre Royal, Bath. She became romantically involved with costar Michael Sheen after meeting during play rehearsals. She later said: "I was all revved up to feel very intimidated. It was my first-ever play and my mother had cut out reviews of him in previous productions. And then he walked in ... It was almost like, 'God, well, I'm finished now. That's it, then.'... He's the most outrageously talented person I've ever met." Irving Wardle of The Independent felt that "the casting, including Michael Sheen's volcanic Kostya and Kate Beckinsale's steadily freezing Nina, is mainly spot-on." In early 1996, she starred in two further plays, Sweetheart at the Royal Court Theatre and Clocks and Whistles at the Bush Theatre.
Beckinsale next starred in an ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, playing Emma to Mark Strong's Mr Knightley and Samantha Morton's Harriet Smith. "You shouldn't necessarily like Emma," Beckinsale has said of her character. "You do love her, but in the way the family of a young girl could be exasperated by her outrageous behaviour and still love her." The programme was aired in autumn 1996, just months after Gwyneth Paltrow had starred in a film adaptation of the same story. Caryn James of The New York Times felt that while "Ms. Beckinsale's Emma is plainer looking than Ms. Paltrow's," she is "altogether more believable and funnier." Jonathan Brown of The Independent has described Beckinsale's interpretation as "the most enduring modern performance" as Emma.
In 1997, Beckinsale appeared opposite Stuart Townsend in the comedy Shooting Fish, one of the most commercially successful British films of that year. "I'd just had my wisdom teeth out," Beckinsale later recalled of the initial audition. "I was also on very strong painkillers, so it was not the most conventional of meetings." Elley wrote of "an incredibly laid-back performance." Thomas felt she "just glows as an aristocrat facing disaster with considerable aplomb." She narrated Austen's Emma for Hodder & Stoughton AudioBooks and Diana Hendry's "The Proposal" for BBC Radio 4. Also in 1997, she played Juliet to Michael Sheen's Romeo, in an audio production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Sheen.
In Beckinsale's last film before her move to the US, she starred as Alice in Channel 4's Alice Through the Looking-Glass, released in July 1998.Zoe Jaques, Eugene Giddens, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: A Publishing History (Routledge, 2016), p. 257
1998–2002: Move to Hollywood At this point in her career, Beckinsale began to seek work in the United States, something she has said wasn't "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." She starred opposite Chloë Sevigny in 1998's The Last Days of Disco. The Whit Stillman film focused on a group of mostly Ivy League and Hampshire College graduates socialising in the Manhattan disco scene of the early 1980s. Beckinsale's American accent was widely praised. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times felt her role as the bossy Charlotte was "beautifully played." Todd McCarthy of Variety was unimpressed by the film but noted that "compensations include Beckinsale, looking incredible in a succession of black dresses, whose character can get on your nerves even if the actress doesn't." Her performance earned her a London Critics' Circle Film Award. The film grossed $3 million worldwide.
In 1999, Beckinsale appeared opposite Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace, a drama about two young Americans forced to deal with the Thai justice system on a post-graduation trip abroad. A then 26-year-old Beckinsale played a young girl. Danes had hoped to become friends with Beckinsale during the shoot but found her "complicated" and "prickly." McCarthy said the leads "confirm their status as two of the young actresses on the scene today most worth watching," finding Beckinsale "very effective at getting across layered character traits and emotions." "Danes and Beckinsale are exceptionally talented young actresses," said Thomas, but "unfortunately, the script's seriously underdeveloped context defeats their considerable efforts at every turn." Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt that Beckinsale's character "never comes into focus." The film was a box office failure.