| BIOGRAPHY
Fine-boned and soft-spoken, Thandie Newton displays a deceptive
fragility that is betrayed by the strong, resilient characters
she often portrays. The actress was born in Zambia in 1972 to
a Zimbabwean mother and British father who moved their family
to London when Newton was four. It was while a student at a private
school in North London that the actress met Australian director
John Duigan, who was casting his coming-of-age tale Flirting (1991).
Newton won a leading role as the smart, worldly girlfriend of
the film's protagonist and starred alongside a then-relatively
unknown Nicole Kidman. Her next film of any significance was 1994's
Interview With the Vampire, in which she had a minor role alongside
Kidman's then-husband, Tom Cruise.
The same year, Newton acted as part of an ensemble cast in Loaded,
a fairly obscure film directed by Anna Campion, sister of The
Piano's Jane Campion. She was then reunited with Flirting director
Duigan in 1995 for The Journey of August King, a little-seen feature
in which she starred with Jason Patric. Greater recognition came
in the form of the same year's Jefferson in Paris, a critically
maligned but impressively cast film, in which Newton played Sally
Hemings, slave and lover of Nick Nolte's Thomas Jefferson. Acting
alongside individuals such as Nolte, James Earl Jones, and Gwyneth
Paltrow certainly did little to hurt Newton's reputation and the
next year she had yet another starring role, this time opposite
Jon Bon Jovi in her third film with director Duigan, The Leading
Man.
Despite her leading status, Newton still hovered on the border
of relative obscurity, something that finally began to change
with three 1998 films in which she had major roles. The first
was Vondie Curtis-Hall's Gridlock'd, a film that won Newton raves
for her turn as a heroine-addicted jazz singer opposite Tim Roth
and Tupac Shakur. Beloved, Newton's second film that year, won
her further recognition, both for her mere presence in the highly
anticipated adaptation of Toni Morrison's novel, and for her portrayal
of the mysterious, ghostly girl who torments Oprah Winfrey's Sethe.
Finally, it was with her third film of 1998, Besieged, that Newton
graduated from relative obscurity to the rank of Hollywood Up
and Comer. The film, which was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
and co-starred David Thewlis, received stellar reviews, many of
which singled out Newton's performance for particular praise.
This, along with a coveted spot on the April 1999 cover of Vanity
Fair's annual Hollywood Issue, further cemented the actress' well-deserved
status as one of the industry's latest Forces to Be Reckoned With.
In 2000, Newton further ascended the ranks of recognition when
she starred opposite former Interview With the Vampire co-star
Tom Cruise in John Woo's Mission: Impossible II; although the
film received mixed reviews, Newton earned almost unanimous approval
from critics, who praised her strong, dynamic performance. |
FILMOGRAPHY
• The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
• Shade (2004)
• The Truth About Charlie (2002)
• Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)
• Besieged (1999)
• Beloved (1998)
• Gridlock'd (1997)
• The Leading Man (1996)
• Loaded (1996)
• Jefferson in Paris (1995)
• The Journey of August King (1995)
• Flirting (1991) |
