Emily Watson: Click Here For Emily's Filmography

I’ve been trying to sit down and write a biography for this fine actress for a while. Sometimes I churn out a biography on an actor that is really just so much pulp but people seem to like pulp, along with the biographies that are orange juice. Well, to kill an analogy, when it comes to acting Watson is pure Orange Juice. You follow?

I mean, she’s top-notch and every performance she has is worth watching, although the movie themselves doesn’t always add up. A case in point is the overly praised and critically lauded film Punch Drunk Love, which is less a movie than celluloid heart surgery. Some one found it necessary but you still didn’t want to watch.

Watson however is the shining star in it. Literally. For my money she was the ONLY (I can’t stress this enough) thing that got me through the movie without pulling outmy own pancreas and flogging myself to death with it.

Also this year she plays the blind love interest of Frances Dollarhyde (Ralph Fiennes) in Red Dragon…but this is where the American audiences are just catching up for the most part. Real film afficionado’s will have seen her performance in Lars Von Trier’s Breaking The Waves. This wasn’t just a feature film debut, it was a career making role earning her an academy award nomination for Best Actress. The fun little fact behind the film is that she landed the role of Bess after Helena Bonham Carter dropped out at the last minute because of the film's explicit sexuality…bad luck for Helena but great for the rest of us.

Prior to Breaking the Waves she had put her time in studying the craft at The Drama Studio, The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Royal National Theatre.

Born Jan 14, 1967 in Islington England to a mother who is an English teacher and a father who is an architect Watson. didn’t really begin her acting career until she was in University. She had graduated from high school, attended University for three year and then applied to drama school…only to be refused…proving once again, grade systems can be over rated sometimes. She spent time waitressing, doing some fringe theatre work before re-applying and gaining acceptance this time. She spent the next year in the course and by 1992 had landed her first professional job in 1992 at the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Emily’s success in Breaking The Waves landed her bigger roles like the one opposite Daniel Day Lewis in The Boxer and another in Metroland opposite another greatly under appreciated actor Christian Bale.

Another Best Actress nomination came her way for playing the doomed cellist Jaqueline Du Pre in Hilary and Jackie (the film was a little dry for my tastes but remember what I said about her performance sometimes over shadowing the piece itself? Another case in point here.)

One of my favourite films of hers though is the great film Cradle Will Rock which not enough people checked out. Stellar performances abound in Tim Robbin’s film and Emily more than holds her own surrounded by the likes of Susan Sarandon, Hank Azaria, Bill Murray and John Cusack.

She has been working steady ever since Breaking The Waves and obviously with the big budget release of Red Dragon and the obscure art-house leanings of P.T. Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love Hollywood has taken notice and seems to feel she can pretty much pull of drama, comedy, victim and lover. Better that than the hooker with the heart of gold.

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Copyright© Staffwriter: Rob Paul