Embeth Davidtz
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| Embeth Davidtz | |
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| Born | August 11, 1965 Lafayette, Indiana, United States |
Embeth Jean Davidtz (born August 11, 1965) is an American-born South African actress.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Davidtz was born in Lafayette, Indiana while her father was studying chemical engineering at Purdue University. Her parents, John and Jean, later moved to Trenton, New Jersey and then back to their native South Africa when Davidtz was nine years old.[1] Davidtz is of English descent and thus had to learn Afrikaans before attending school classes in South Africa,[1] where her father took up a teaching post at Potchefstroom University. She graduated from The Glen High School in Pretoria in 1983, and earned a degree (cum laude) in Drama & English Literature from Rhodes University in Grahamstown.
[edit] Early roles
Davidtz made her professional acting debut at age 21 with CAPAB (Cape Performing Arts Board now known as Artscape) in Cape Town, playing "Juliet" in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet, at the Maynardville Open-Air Theatre. Performing in English and Afrikaans, the bilingual actress also starred in other local plays, including Stille Nag (Silent Night) and A Chain of Voices, both for which she was nominated for the South African equivalent of the Tony Award.
Her film debut came in 1988 when she starred in the South African-filmed, American horror film, Mutator, and shortly after won a major role in the politically sensitive South African made-for-television film A Private Life, as the daughter of an interracial couple. She garnered a South African equivalent of an Oscar nomination playing a rape victim who becomes deaf and mute, in the psychologically intense Afrikaans feature film, Nag van die 19de (Night of the 19th) in 1992.
[edit] Hollywood career
After meeting with an agent in London, Davidtz moved to Los Angeles in 1992 and immediately landed a role in her first American film, Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness. Soon after she appeared in two NBC projects, the made-for-television film Till Death Do Us Part and the miniseries Deadly Matrimony. She was also seen in Laura Ziskin's short film Oh, What A Day, opposite Viggo Mortensen. Director Steven Spielberg spotted the actress in Deadly Matrimony and cast her in Schindler's List as Helen Hirsch, the Jewish maid.
Davidtz next had a high-profile leading role in the fact-based film Murder in the First (1995) followed by the Merchant Ivory production Feast of July (also 1995). In Matilda (1996), a feature based on Roald Dahl's children's fantasy, she played the role of Miss Honey, a teacher of the title character.
In 1998, Davidtz played a theologian helping Denzel Washington crack a supernatural wave of crimes in the mystery drama Fallen and played a femme fatale linked to Kenneth Branagh in Robert Altman's take on a previously unused John Grisham manuscript, The Gingerbread Man. The following year, Davidtz portrayed 19th-century woman of the world in Patricia Rozema's reworking of the Jane Austen comedy Mansfield Park and played a dual role in the futuristic fable Bicentennial Man.
A supporting role in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones' Diary (2001) saw Davidtz play a villain for a change. That year she began her run on the CBS drama Citizen Baines, playing the daughter of a defeated United States Senate incumbent (James Cromwell) who is herself leaning towards a career in politics. Other roles included period dramas in 1999's Wayward Son and the 2001-lensed Secret Passage and horror thrillers like 2001's Thir13en Ghosts. In 2002, she was cast in the Michael Hoffman drama, The Emperor's Club, a movie which co-starred Kevin Kline and Emile Hirsch.
In Junebug (2005), Davidtz played an outsider art dealer from Chicago brought to North Carolina by her husband (Alessandro Nivola) to meet his family for the first time. Davidtz also guest-starred on the hit ABC drama series Grey's Anatomy as Dr. Derek Shepherd's sister Nancy in Season 3 Episode 6 "Let the Angels Commit". She recently appeared on HBO's In Treatment as Amy.
[edit] Personal life
She married entertainment attorney Jason Sloane on June 22, 2002; they have two children, Charlotte Emily (born 2002) and Asher Dylan (born 2005).
[edit] Filmography
- Winged Creatures (2008)
- Fracture (2007)
- Junebug (2005)
- The Emperor's Club (2002)
- Shackleton (2002) (TV)
- Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
- The Hole (2001) aka After the Hole
- Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
- Bicentennial Man (1999)
- Mansfield Park (1999)
- Simon Magus (1999) aka Simon le Magicien
- The Gingerbread Man (1998)
- Fallen (1998)
- Last Rites (1998) (TV)
- The Garden of Redemption (1997) (TV)
- Matilda (1996)
- Murder in the First (1995)
- Feast of July (1995)
- Schindler's List (1993)
- Army of Darkness (1993)
- Deadly Matrimony (1992) (TV)
- Nag van die 19de (1992)
- Till Death Us Do Part (1992) (TV)
- Sweet Murder (1990)
- A Private Life (1989) (TV)
- Mutator (1989)
