Kate Beckinsale

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Kathrin Romary "Kate" Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress. After some minor television roles, she made her film debut in Much Ado About Nothing while still a student at Oxford University. She then appeared in British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland , Cold Comfort Farm , Emma , and The Golden Bowl , in addition to various stage and radio productions. She began to seek film work in the United States in the late 1990s and, after appearing in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco and Brokedown Palace , she had a break-out year in 2001 with starring roles in the war film Pearl Harbor and the romantic comedy Serendipity. She built on this success with appearances in the biopic The Aviator and the comedy Click . 

Beckinsale read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford and was later described by a contemporary, journalist Victoria Coren, as "whip-clever, slightly nuts, and very charming". She was a two-time winner of the WH Smith Young Writers Award for both fiction and poetry. She was involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, most notably being directed by fellow student Tom Hooper in a production of A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse. She spent her third year in Paris as required of all Modern Language students at Oxford, after which she decided to leave university to concentrate on her burgeoning acting career: "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high pressure. I was burning out and I knew I had to make a decision.". 

Beckinsale decided at a young age that she wanted to be an actress: "I grew up immersed in film. My family were in the business. I quickly realised that my parents seemed to have much more fun in their work than any of my friends’ parents." She was inspired by the performances of Jeanne Moreau. She made her television debut in 1991 with a small part in an ITV adaptation of P. James’ Devices and Desires. Also that year, she appeared as a young woman engaging in a forbidden affair with a Nazi officer in the Hallmark film One Against The Wind. In 1992 she starred alongside Christopher Eccleston in Rachel’s Dream, a 30‑minute Channel 4 short, and in 1993, she appeared in the pilot of the ITV detective series, Anna Lee, starring Imogen Stubbs. In 1993, Beckinsale landed the role of Hero in Kenneth Branagh's big-screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. It was filmed in Tuscany, Italy, during a summer holiday from Oxford University. She attended the film's Cannes Film Festival premiere and later remembered it as an overwhelming experience. "Nobody even told me I could bring a friend!" "I had Doc Martens boots on, and I think I put the flower from the breakfast tray in my hair". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was won over by her "lovely" performance while Vincent Canby of the New York Times noted that she and Robert Sean Leonard "look right and behave with a certain naive sincerity, although they often seem numb with surprise at hearing the complex locutions they speak". The film earned over $22 million at the box office. She made three other films while at university. In 1994, she appeared as Christian Bale's love interest in Prince of Jutland, a film based on the Danish legend which inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet, and starred in the murder mystery Uncovered. In 1995, while studying in Paris, she filmed the French language Marie-Louise Ou La Permission. 

Beckinsale next starred in an ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, playing Emma to Mark Strong's Mr Knightley and Samantha Morton's Harriet Smith. "You shouldn't necessarily like Emma," Beckinsale has said of her character. "You do love her, but in the way the family of a teenage girl could be exasperated by her outrageous behaviour and still love her." The programme was aired in autumn 1996, just months after Gwyneth Paltrow had starred in a film adaptation of the same story. Caryn James of the New York Times felt that while "Ms. Beckinsale's Emma is plainer looking than Ms. Paltrow's", she is "altogether more believable and funnier". Jonathan Brown of The Independent has described Beckinsale's interpretation as "the most enduring modern performance" as Emma. In 1997, Beckinsale appeared opposite Stuart Townsend in the comedy Shooting Fish, one of the most commercially successful British films of that year. "I'd just had my wisdom teeth out", Beckinsale later recalled of the initial audition. "I was also on very strong painkillers, so it was not the most conventional of meetings." Elley wrote of "an incredibly laid-back performance" while Thomas felt she "just glows as an aristocrat facing disaster with considerable aplomb". She narrated Austen's Emma for Hodder & Stoughton AudioBooks and Diana Hendry's The Proposal for BBC Radio 4. Also in 1997, she played Juliet to Michael Sheen's Romeo in a radio production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Sheen. 

In 2009, Beckinsale starred in the comic-book adaption Whiteout as a U.S. Marshal tasked with investigating a murder in Antarctica. It was filmed in Manitoba, Canada. She found the action scenes less physically demanding than those in Underworld because "three pairs of trousers and a parka gives you a bit more protection than the latex suit". The film was critically panned and a box office failure, failing to recoup its budget. She also made a brief cameo in the prequel Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; she appeared in flashforwards composed of footage from 2003's Underworld. Also in 2009, Beckinsale starred in the family drama Everybody's Fine alongside Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, and Rockwell, her Snow Angels co-star. Beckinsale was excited for the opportunity to work with De Niro whom she had first encountered "years and years ago when I just had Lily and he was putting together a reading of The Good Shepherd. I was in New York because Michael was doing Amadeus". Everybody's Fine was a box office failure, failing to recoup its production budget. In May 2010, Beckinsale sat on the nine-member 2010 Cannes Film Festival jury, chaired by director Tim Burton. Unable to find a script she felt passionate about, Beckinsale otherwise kept a low profile in 2010 and 2011, opting to spend time with her daughter. 

Beckinsale has worked occasionally as a model. In 1997, she appeared in the music video for George Michael's Waltz Away Dreaming. She starred opposite Orlando Bloom in a 2002 Gap television advert directed by Cameron Crowe. She appeared in a Diet Coke television advert in 2004, directed by Michael Gondry. She advertised Absolut Vodka in a 2009 print campaign photographed by Ellen von Unwerth. She has also promoted Lux shampoo in a Japanese television advert. Beckinsale was named "England's Number One Beauty" by Hello! in 2002 and appeared at number 41 in People Magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People list in 2008. Many publications have included her in their rankings of the world's sexiest women. Esquire named her the Sexiest Woman Alive in 2009. She was at number 22 in Maxim's Hot 100 2009 list. She came in at number 41 on FHM's Sexiest Women of 2010 list, having previously appeared at number 15 in their 2009 list and at number 12 in their 2008 list. She has frequently appeared in AskMen.com's annual list of the 99 Most Desired Women: she was at number 22 in 2012, at number 14 in 2011, at number 3 in 2010, at number 10 in 2009 and at number 3 in 2008. 

Reference

• Kate Beckinsale. (2013). Retrieved on August 7, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Beckinsale.
• Kate Beckinsale. (2013). Retrieved on August 7, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Beckinsale.
• Kate Beckinsale. (2013). Retrieved on August 7, 2013, from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Beckinsale.