Kristin Scott Thomas

Acting

Kristin Scott Thomas

Born 1960-05-24 · Redruth, Cornwall, England, UK

Dame Kristin Ann Scott Thomas (born 24 May 1960) is a British actress. A five-time BAFTA Award and Olivier Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and the Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2008 for the Royal Court revival of The Seagull. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in The English Patient (1996). Scott Thomas made her film debut in Under the Cherry Moon (1986), and won the Evening Standard Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer for A Handful of Dust (1988). Her work includes Bitter Moon (1992), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), Gosford Park (2001), The Valet (2006), and Tell No One (2007). She won the European Film Award for Best Actress for Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long (2008). Her other films include Leaving (2009), Love Crime (2010), Sarah's Key (2010), Nowhere Boy (2010), The Woman in the Fifth (2011), Only God Forgives (2013), Darkest Hour (2017), and Tomb Raider (2018). On television, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her guest appearance in the second season of the comedy series Fleabag (2019), and has starred in the Apple TV+ spy series Slow Horses since 2022. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2003 Birthday Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama. She was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 2005. Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was brought up in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying Kristin's father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, a pilot in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm 893 Squadron, who died in a flying accident on a de Havilland Sea Vixen when Kristin was aged five. She has three siblings, including Serena Scott Thomas. She is the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (a former Black Rod), the granddaughter of William Scott Thomas (who commanded HMS Impulsive during World War II) and the great-great-niece of the polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott. The childhood home of Scott Thomas was in Trent, near Sherborne, Dorset, England. Her mother remarried another Royal Navy pilot, Lieutenant Commander Simon Idiens (of Simon's Sircus aerobatic team flying Sea Vixens), who also died in a flying accident whilst flying a Phantom FG1 from RNAS Yeovilton off the North coast of Cornwall in January 1972. Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and St Antony's Leweston in Sherborne, Dorset. On leaving school in 1978, she moved to Hampstead, London, and worked in a department store. She began training to become a drama teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama, enrolling on a BEd in Speech and Drama. During her time at the school, she requested to switch degree courses to acting but was refused. After a year at Central, speaking French fluently, she decided to move to Paris to work as an au pair,[2] and studied acting at the École Nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre (ENSATT). When she was 25, she was cast as Mary Sharon in the film Under the Cherry Moon (1986).

Acting credits

Mission: Impossible poster
7.0

When Ethan Hunt, the leader of a crack espionage team whose perilous operation has gone awry with no explanation, discovers that a mole has penetrated the CIA, he's surprised to learn that he's the prime suspect. To clear his name, Hunt now must ferret out the real double agent and, in the process, even the score.

Mission: Impossible

1996

Four Weddings and a Funeral poster
6.8

Over the course of five social occasions, a committed bachelor must consider the notion that he may have discovered love.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

1994

Tomb Raider poster
6.4

Lara Croft, the fiercely independent daughter of a missing adventurer, must push herself beyond her limits when she finds herself on the island where her father disappeared.

Tomb Raider

2018

Gosford Park poster
6.8

In 1930s England, a group of pretentious rich and famous gather together for a weekend of relaxation at a hunting resort. But when a murder occurs, each one of these interesting characters becomes a suspect.

Gosford Park

2001

The Golden Compass poster
6.1

In a parallel universe, after overhearing a shocking secret, precocious orphan Lyra Belacqua trades her carefree existence roaming the halls of Jordan College for an otherworldly adventure in the far North, unaware that it's part of her destiny.

The Golden Compass

2007

Confessions of a Shopaholic poster
6.5

In the glamorous world of New York City, Rebecca Bloomwood is a fun-loving girl who is really good at shopping – a little too good, perhaps. She dreams of working for her favorite fashion magazine, but can't quite get her foot in the door – until ironically, she snags a job as an advice columnist for a financial magazine published by the same company.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

2009

Darkest Hour poster
7.4

In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.

Darkest Hour

2017

The English Patient poster
7.1

In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.

The English Patient

1996

The Horse Whisperer poster
6.9

The mother of a severely traumatized daughter enlists the aid of a unique horse trainer to help the girl's equally injured horse.

The Horse Whisperer

1998

The Other Boleyn Girl poster
6.7

A sumptuous and sensual tale of intrigue, romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in European history: two beautiful sisters, Anne and Mary Boleyn, driven by their family's blind ambition, compete for the love of the handsome and passionate King Henry VIII.

The Other Boleyn Girl

2008

Bitter Moon poster
7.1

A passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.

Bitter Moon

1992

Keeping Mum poster
6.7

A pastor preoccupied with writing the perfect sermon fails to realize that his wife is having an affair and his children are up to no good.

Keeping Mum

2005

My Mother's Wedding poster
6.2

Three sisters return to their home for the third wedding of their twice-widowed mother. But the mother and daughters are forced to revisit the past and confront the future, with help from a colorful group of unexpected wedding guests.

My Mother's Wedding

2025

In the House poster
7.2

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.

In the House

2012

Life as a House poster
7.1

When a man is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he takes custody of his misanthropic teenage son, for whom quality time means getting high, engaging in small-time prostitution, and avoiding his father.

Life as a House

2001

The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch poster
6.0

After a powerful billionaire is murdered, his secret adoptive son must race to prove his legitimacy, find his father's killers and stop them from taking over his financial empire.

The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch

2008

Only God Forgives poster
5.8

Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother's recent death.

Only God Forgives

2013

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen poster
6.4

A fisheries expert is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheik's vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the desert and embarks on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible possible.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

2012

Bel Ami poster
5.3

Georges Duroy travels through 1890s Paris, from cockroach ridden garrets to opulent salons, using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth, from a prostitute’s embrace to passionate trysts with wealthy beauties, in a world where politics and media jostle for influence, where sex is power and celebrity an obsession.

Bel Ami

2012

Rebecca poster
6.3

After a whirlwind romance with a wealthy widower, a naïve bride moves to his family estate but can't escape the haunting shadow of his late wife.

Rebecca

2020

2 Alone in Paris poster
5.1

A bumbling Paris policeman is doggedly determined to capture the master thief that repeatedly eludes him, even when they're the last two men on Earth.

2 Alone in Paris

2008

Suite Française poster
7.2

France, 1940. In the first days of occupation, beautiful Lucile Angellier is trapped in a stifled existence with her controlling mother-in-law as they both await news of her husband: a prisoner of war. Parisian refugees start to pour into their small town, soon followed by a regiment of German soldiers who take up residence in the villagers' own homes. Lucile initially tries to ignore Bruno von Falk, the handsome and refined German officer staying with them. But soon, a powerful love draws them together and leads them into the tragedy of war.

Suite Française

2015

Tell No One poster
7.2

A man receives a mysterious email appearing to be from his wife, who was murdered years earlier. As he frantically tries to find out whether she's alive, he finds himself being implicated in her death.

Tell No One

2006

Nowhere Boy poster
7.2

A rebellious teenager, future Beatle John Lennon lives with his Aunt Mimi in working-class mid-1950s Liverpool, England. Mimi's husband suddenly dies, and John spies his mother Julia at the funeral. Despite Mimi's misgivings, John intends to have a real relationship with his mother. Julia introduces him to popular music and the banjo and, though a family conflict looms, young John is inspired to form his own band.

Nowhere Boy

2009

Behind the camera