Jennifer Ehle's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) A Gifted Man Anna Paul Pride and Prejudice (UK) Elizabeth B… The Russell Girl Lorainne Mo…

Main Movie Roles 2011 - Contagion 2010 - The King's Speech 2009 - The Greatest 2008 - Pride and Glory 2007 - Before The Rains 1999 - Sunshine 1997 - Wilde 1994 - Backbeat

BIOGRAPHY:

Jennifer Ehle is a two-time Tony Award-winning British-American actress of stage and screen. She is probably best known for her starring role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 mini-series Pride and Prejudice.

Early life
Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle, Ehle made her stage debut as a toddler in A Streetcar Named Desire, in which her mother played Blanche Dubois. She spent her childhood between the UK and America, attending 18 different schools including the Interlochen Arts Academy. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

Career
In 1992, Peter Hall cast her in an adaptation of The Camomile Lawn, a novel by Mary Wesley, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages. This story, produced by UK's Channel 4, was a five part mini-series about lives and loves of a family of cousins from 1939 to the present.

Her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice gained her a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award. After a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she gained her first major feature film role in Paradise Road. She continued pursuing a career both on stage and screen, winning critical acclaim and a Best Performance by a Leading Actress Tony Award for her 2000 Broadway debut in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Her mother was also nominated for the same award that year for Waiting in the Wings. After a hiatus, she returned to the stage in 2005 in The Philadelphia Story at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year she played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth as part of the Shakespeare in the Park. She won her second Tony award for portraying three characters in Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia triptych, which ran from October 2006 until May 2007.

Her most recent films include Before the Rains, an Indian-US co-production directed by Santosh Sivan, and Pride and Glory with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell. In 2008 she was featured in a CBS telefilm, The Russell Girl.

Ehle played a character in István Szabó's movie Sunshine, and her mother Rosemary Harris played the older version of the character.

In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in HBO's Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song Of Ice And Fire fantasy book series.

In 2010, Ehle will be staring alongside John Lithgow in the production of MR. & MRS. FITCH presented by Second Stage Theatre. She will also play Myrtle Logue, wife of King George VI's speech therapist Lionel Logue, in The King's Speech. George VI is played by her Pride and Prejudice co-star, Colin Firth.

Personal life
Ehle dated actors Toby Stephens, from The Camomile Lawn, and Colin Firth, Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. She is now married to the writer Michael Ryan and they have two children, George and Talulah. They currently reside in upstate New York.


TRIVIA:

• Has a son, George, with Michael Ryan.
• In 1992 she won the Radio Times Awards for Best Newcomer for "The Cammomile Lawn" (1992).
• Had a relationship with 'Colin Firth' (qv) whom she met while filming _"Pride and Prejudice" (1995)_ (qv).
• Daughter of 'Rosemary Harris (I)' (qv) and 'John Ehle' (qv).
• Attended The Central School of Speech and Drama in London
• In 2000 she won the Variety Cub Showbusiness Awards for Best Stage Actress for The Real Thing.
• Won Broadway's 2000 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for a revival of 'Tom Stoppard' (qv)'s "The Real Thing." One of her competitors who did not win was her mother, 'Rosemary Harris (I)' (qv).
• When casting for his film _Sunshine (1999)_ (qv), director 'István Szabó (I)' (qv) didn't know she was 'Rosemary Harris (I)' (qv)' daughter in real life.