Emily Mortimer

Born: 1971

Where: London, UK

The Oxford-educated actress is equally at home in historical dramas such as Elizabeth, modern day thrillers (51st State) and spoof horror like Scream 3.

The daughter of writer John "Rumpole of the Bailey" Mortimer, she is one of the few actresses ever likely to pen a column for The Daily Telegraph.

She was a student at the prestigious St Paul's Girls School when she first developed an interest in acting, appearing in several student productions.

After graduating from St Paul's, she moved on to Oxford to study Russian.

While acting in a student production she impressed a producer who cast her in a supporting role in a television adaptation of Catherine Cookson's The Glass Virgin.

Several more television roles followed, including the British TV movie Sharpe's Sword, before she won her first film role, playing the wife of John Patterson (Val Kilmer) in 1996's The Ghost and the Darkness.

Mortimer had a showier role in the Irish coming-of-age story The Last of the High Kings, released later the same year, and played Miss Flynn in the TV series Cider With Rosie (which was adapted for television by her father).

Also in 1998, Mortimer appeared as Kat Ashley in the international hit Elizabeth, and in 1999, she enjoyed three showy roles that raised her profile outside Britain.

She was the ill-fated "Perfect Girl" dropped by Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, Esther in the US series Noah's Ark, and Angelina, the star of the film-within-a-film, in the slasher flick Scream 3.

Next she was featured as Katherine in Kenneth Branagh's 1930s-set Busby Berkeley-esque musical take on the Shakespeare comedy Love's Labour's Lost.

She fared better in Disney's The Kid, playing Bruce Willis' feisty British love interest, and won plaudits for her role in Lovely & Amazing.

She followed this up as an unconvincing hitwoman in the Liverpool-set 51st State with Samuel L Jackson and co-starred with Ewan McGregor in the risque Young Adam.

Mortimer went on to star in an ensemble cast in Stephen Fry's directorial debut Bright Young Things, based on Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies.

In 2003, she starred in Shona Auerbach's directorial debut Dear Frankie, about a deaf boy's relationship with his absent sailor father.

Recent work includes providing the voice of Sophie in Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki's critically acclaimed cartoon Howl's Moving Castle.