Jennifer Ehle
Jennifer Anne Ehle is an American actress. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice. For her work on Broadway, she won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for The Real Thing, and the 2007 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for The Coast of Utopia. She is the daughter of English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle.
Ehle made her West End debut in Peter Hall's 1991 production of Tartuffe, and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1995. Television credits include The Camomile Lawn, A Gifted Man and The Looming Tower. She has also appeared in supporting roles in such films as Brian Gilbert's Wilde, István Szabó's Sunshine, Tom Hooper's The King's Speech, Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos, Terence Davies' A Quiet Passion, and Ira Sachs' Little Men.
Early life and education
Ehle was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to British actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. Her ancestry includes Romanian and, paternally, German and English.Ehle appeared as a toddler in a 1973 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, in which her mother played Blanche DuBois. She spent her childhood in both the UK and the US, attending several different schools including Interlochen Arts Academy. She was raised largely in Asheville, North Carolina. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Career
One of Ehle's first notable roles was as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice co-starring Colin Firth.Theatre career
Ehle made her West End debut as Orgon's wife in the 1991 Peter Hall Company production of Tartuffe, for which she won second prize at the Ian Charleson Awards. Hall then cast her as Calypso in The Camomile Lawn, a television adaptation of Mary Wesley's book of the same name, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages.After a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she gained her first major feature film role in Paradise Road. She continued her career on both stage and screen.
In 2000, Ehle made her Broadway debut to great critical acclaim as Annie in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. Her mother, Rosemary Harris, was also nominated for the same award that year for Waiting in the Wings. That following year, Ehle appeared again on Broadway in the revival of Noël Coward's Design for Living co-starring with Dominic West and Alan Cumming.
After a hiatus, Ehle returned to the London stage in 2005 in The Philadelphia Story at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year, she played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Liev Schreiber, as part of the Shakespeare in the Park.
Ehle returned to Broadway and 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.
In 2010, Ehle starred alongside John Lithgow in the production of Mr. & Mrs. Fitch presented by Second Stage Theatre in New York City.
In 2017, she appeared in the critically acclaimed Oslo, which won the Tony Award for Best Play. She herself was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for her work.
Film and television career
Since 2010 Ehle has appeared in a string of critically acclaimed films such as The King's Speech, Steven Soderbergh's Contagion, George Clooney's The Ides of March, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos, Ira Sach's Little Men, and Terence Davies' A Quiet Passion.In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in the pilot of HBO's Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy book series. Ehle filmed the pilot episode, but decided it was too soon to return to work after the birth of her daughter. She was replaced by Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley.
Personal life
Ehle married writer Michael Ryan on November 29, 2001, and they have two children.Filmography
Television
Film
Theatre
Awards and nominations
Tony Awards| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 2000 | Actress in a Play | The Real Thing | |
| 2007 | Featured Actress in a Play | The Coast of Utopia | |
| 2017 | Actress in a Play | Oslo |
BAFTA Awards
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 1996 | BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress | Pride & Prejudice | |
| 1998 | Best Supporting Actress | Wilde |
Screen Actors Guild Award
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 2010 | Best Cast in a Motion Picture | The King's Speech |
Laurence Olivier Award
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 2000 | Best Actress | The Real Thing |
Outer Critics Circle Award
| Year | Category | Nominated work | Result |
| 2000 | Best Actress – Play | The Real Thing | |
| 2007 | Best Featured Actress – Play | The Coast of Utopia |
Other award wins:
- 1991: Ian Charleson Award, Second Prize – as Orgon's wife in Tartuffe with the Peter Hall Company
- 1992: Radio Times Award Best Newcomer – The Camomile Lawn
- 2000: Variety Club Award – The Real Thing
- 2000: Genie Award nomination – Sunshine