Geraldine Somerville

Somerville was born in County Meath on 19 May 1967, the second child of Sir Quentin Charles Agnew-Somerville, 2nd Baronet (1929−2010), a Naval officer and insurance consultant,{{Cite web |title=Navan Historical Society – Somerville Family |url=http://www.navanhistory.ie/index.php?page=somerville |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=navanhistory.ie}} and his wife Margaret April Irene (née Drummond), daughter of John Drummond, 15th Baron Strange. She has two siblings.{{Cite web | title=Interview: Geraldine Somerville, actress {{!}} The Scotsman | date=26 March 2012 | url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/interview-geraldine-somerville-actress-1637147 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211206165338/https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/interview-geraldine-somerville-actress-1637147 | access-date=2024-12-24 | archive-date=2021-12-06}} When Somerville was six, the family moved to the Isle of Man; from the age of eight, she attended the Arts Educational School, Tring (now Tring Park School for the Performing Arts), a boarding school in Tring, Hertfordshire, where, having originally studied ballet, she first developed an interest in acting. At sixteen, she left the school to continue her studies in London, before gaining a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 1988.{{Cite news |last=Day |first=Elizabeth |date=2012-03-25 |title=Geraldine Somerville: 'I think I'm at a tricky stage…' |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/mar/25/geraldine-somerville-titanic-interview-day |access-date=2023-10-18 |issn=0029-7712}}

Somerville's early television roles include guest roles in Poirot, Casualty and The Bill.{{Citation |title=Casualty: All's Fair {{!}} TVmaze |url=https://www.tvmaze.com/episodes/64227/casualty-5x12-alls-fair |access-date=2023-10-18 |language=en}}{{Citation |last=Braman |first=Ed |title=Playing Away |date=1993-04-22 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0850803/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |series=The Bill |others=Eric Richard, Mark Wingett, Trudie Goodwin}} In 1991, she starred as Biddy Millican in The Black Velvet Gown, an ITV production based on the 1984 novel by Catherine Cookson. The film was watched by 12.8 million viewers, and received an International Emmy Award for Drama.{{Cite web |date=2014-12-29 |title=1991 International Emmy Awards Bestowed in New York |url=http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1991/1991-International-Emmy-Awards-Bestowed-in-New-York/id-31566155478b1f5d18c93cb931bf5ee1-title=1991 |access-date=2023-10-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141229141951/http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1991/1991-International-Emmy-Awards-Bestowed-in-New-York/id-31566155478b1f5d18c93cb931bf5ee1-title=1991 |archive-date=29 December 2014 }} In that same year, she made her film debut in Stephen Poliakoff's Close My Eyes in a supporting role. In 1993, she was cast as DS Jane "Panhandle" Penhaligon in crime drama Cracker, written by Jimmy McGovern. The critically acclaimed series starred Robbie Coltrane as the eponymous criminal psychologist, and went on to win seven TV BAFTAs;{{Citation |title=Cracker (TV Series 1993–1996) – Awards – IMDb |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105977/awards/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |language=en-US}} Somerville gained a Best Actress nomination for her performance in 1995.{{Cite web |title=1995 Television Actress {{!}} BAFTA Awards |url=http://awards.bafta.org/award/1995/television/actress |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=awards.bafta.org}} That year also saw the release of Haunted, a horror film directed by veteran filmmaker Lewis Gilbert, in which she played Kate McCarrick. In 1994, she appeared in two episodes of Performance, a BBC2 anthology series which originally aired between 1991 and 1998, broadcasting productions of both classic and contemporary plays: Somerville played Ann Welch in The Deep Blue Sea,{{Citation |last=Reisz |first=Karel |title=The Deep Blue Sea |date=1994-11-12 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109587/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |series=Performance |others=Carmel McSharry, Stephen Tompkinson, Geraldine Somerville}} and Miss Julie in After Miss Julie.{{Citation |last=Marber |first=Patrick |title=After Miss Julie |date=1995-11-04 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199304/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |series=Performance |others=Kathy Burke, Phil Daniels, Geraldine Somerville}} In 1996, she featured in sports drama True Blue, which recounted the events of the 1987 Oxford-Cambridge boat race.{{Cite web |last=Senior |first=Matthew |date=2023-03-25 |title=Looking back on the year that mutiny rocked the Cambridge-Oxford Boat Race |url=https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/history/mutiny-cambridge-oxford-boat-race-26558248 |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Cambridgeshire Live |language=en}} The film was selected to be screened at the Royal Film Performance, attended by Queen Elizabeth II.{{Cite web |title=50th Royal Film Performance: True Blue (1996) |url=https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20180901171943mp_/https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b7fd16101 |access-date=2023-10-18 |publisher=British Film Institute |language=en}}

In 1998, Somerville starred as Olivia in romantic comedy Jilting Joe, opposite James Purefoy. Also that year, she played Louisa Stockbridge in Gosford Park, a satirical comedy drama set in an English country house in the 1930s. The film was written by Julian Fellowes and directed by Robert Altman; it went on to be nominated for nine BAFTAs and seven Academy Awards, winning Best Original Screenplay. Somerville and the cast also received five awards for Best Ensemble, including a Screen Actors Guild award.

In 1999, Somerville portrayed Lady Emily Lennox in BBC period drama series Aristocrats, based on Stella Tillyard's biography of the lives and loves of the four Lennox sisters.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ilD11jkk4gC | title=Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox, 1740-1832 | isbn=9780099477112 | last1=Tillyard | first1=Stella | date=6 October 1995 | publisher=Vintage }} The series was nominated for Best Drama and Best Costume Design at the Irish Film and Television Awards, and received two nominations from the Royal Television Society for its costumes and makeup.{{Cite web |date=2011-01-24 |title=RTS Craft and Design Winners 1999 |url=https://rts.org.uk/award/rts-craft-and-design-winners-1999 |access-date=2023-10-18 |publisher=Royal Television Society |language=en}} She played Val McArdle in four episodes of Daylight Robbery, an ITV crime drama series about four Essex housewives struggling with personal and domestic problems. In 2001, she made her first appearance as Lily Potter in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a role she would go on to reprise in all eight films in the franchise. In 2002, Somerville played trauma psychologist Dr. Sam Graham in television film The Safe House;[https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b85d108ff]{{dead link|date=October 2023|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} she also appeared in an episode of Murder in Mind, an anthology series created by Anthony Horowitz, featuring self-contained stories with a murderous theme, seen from the perspective of the killer. In 2005, she featured in an episode of period crime drama series Jericho as Fiona Hewitt. In 2006, she played Alice Barrie in biographical comedy-drama Sixty Six.

In 2007, Somerville starred as best-selling novelist Daphne du Maurier in biographical drama Daphne, adapted from the authorised biography by Margaret Forster.{{Cite news |last=Kellaway |first=Kate |date=2007-04-14 |title=Daphne's unruly passions |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/15/fiction.features1 |access-date=2023-10-18 |issn=0029-7712}} The film aired on 12 May on BBC2, and co-starred Janet McTeer as Gertrude Lawrence and Elizabeth McGovern as Ellen Doubleday, the object of du Maurier's unrequited affections.{{Cite news |last=Thorpe |first=Vanessa |date=2007-02-11 |title=Du Maurier's lesbian loves on film |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/feb/11/books.media |access-date=2023-10-18 |issn=0029-7712}} Later that year, she appeared in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries as DS Michelle Tate. In 2008, Somerville played the grieving mother of a murdered child in three episodes of ITV thriller The Children. In 2010, she played Fiona Douglas in sci-fi drama Survivors, a BBC series about a group of people battling for survival on a post-apocalyptic Earth after a devastating influenza epidemic. In 2012, Somerville starred in ITV drama series Titanic as Louisa, Countess of Manton, a fictional passenger travelling on its ill-fated maiden voyage. The series was created by Julian Fellowes to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster.{{Cite web |date=2020-10-05 |title=A look back at ITV's 'Titanic' miniseries |url=https://britishperioddramas.com/info/a-look-back-at-itvs-titanic-miniseries/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=British Period Dramas |language=en-GB}} In the same year, she also appeared in short film The Girl, which saw her nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Madrid International Film Festival.{{Cite web |title=Madrid International Film Festival, ES (2013) |url=http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0001944/2013/1/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |publisher=IMDb}}

In 2014, she appeared in three films: British drama The Riot Club, sci-fi action film Automata, and Grace Kelly biopic Grace of Monaco, where she portrayed Princess Antoinette, a member of the House of Grimaldi. She also appeared in two episodes of Quirke, a British-Irish crime drama miniseries, adapted by Andrew Davies from the Quirke novels by John Banville.{{Cite web |title=Quirke Mysteries by Benjamin Black |url=https://www.panmacmillan.com/series/quirke-mysteries/s103551143704 |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=panmacmillan.com |language=en}} In 2015, Somerville played Assistant Commissioner Cynthia Kline in long-running police procedural New Tricks. The following year, she appeared in two episodes of Silent Witness as Lydia Hamilton. In 2017, Somerville portrayed Joyce Tennison, mother of Jane Tennison, in Prime Suspect 1973, a prequel covering Tennison's early years as a WPC within the Metropolitan Police Service. That same year, she featured in A.A. Milne biopic Goodbye Christopher Robin and comedy film The Hippopotamus, adapted from the novel by Stephen Fry. In 2018, she played Ruth Palmer in four episodes of Channel 4 cyber thriller Kiss Me First. The series began airing on 2 April 2018, and was made available on Netflix the following month. In 2019, Somerville appeared as Lady McLeod in Christmas-themed romantic comedy television film Christmas in the Highlands,{{Cite web |title=Christmas in the Highlands |url=https://www.reeloneent.com/programming/christmas-in-the-highlands/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Reel One |language=en-US}} and as Lady Pressfield in action comedy The Gentlemen, directed by Guy Ritchie. In 2023, she appeared in erotic thriller Fair Play, opposite Phoebe Dynevor.

Somerville made her professional stage debut at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre in 1989, playing Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams; The Stage newspaper described her as "someone to watch out for". She was nominated for a Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for her performance.{{Cite web |date=2022-09-02 |title=Cracker of a role as Geraldine Somerville returns to Glass Menagerie at Royal Exchange |url=https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/20878425.33-years-geraldine-somerville-back-glass-menagerie/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Lancashire Telegraph |language=en}} In 1990, she starred as Antoinette in More Than One Antoinette at the Young Vic, a role inspired by the character of Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre.{{Cite journal |last=Thomas |first=Sue |date=2006-12-01 |title=The spectre of an "empty bed": Debbie Shewell's More Than One Antoinette |journal=Revue LISA/LISA e-journal. Littératures, Histoire des Idées, Images, Sociétés du Monde Anglophone – Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-speaking World |language=en |volume=IV|issue=4 |pages=131–143 |doi=10.4000/lisa.1940 |issn=1762-6153|doi-access=free }} She then appeared in three productions at the Bristol Old Vic, including a leading role as Juliet in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 1992.{{cite web | url=https://theatricalia.com/play/n/romeo-and-juliet/production/csp | title=Production of Romeo and Juliet | Theatricalia }}{{cite web | url=https://bbashakespeare.warwick.ac.uk/productions/romeo-and-juliet-1992-bristol-old-vic | title=Romeo and Juliet (1992): Bristol Old Vic | BBA Shakespeare }} In 1996, she made her first appearance at the National Theatre in a stage adaptation of Dennis Potter's 1979 television play Blue Remembered Hills.{{cite web | url=http://catalogue.nationaltheatre.org.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Performance&id=1563 | title=CalmView: Overview }} She also starred as Nora in a Birmingham Repertory Theatre production of Ibsen's A Doll’s House.

In 1998, Somerville played Dee in I Am Yours at the Royal Court Theatre. The following year, she performed again at the National Theatre in Remember This, directed by Stephen Poliakoff. In 2003, she made her third National appearance at the Cottesloe Theatre in Power, a drama set during the reign of Louis XIV's, with Somerville playing Henriette d’Angleterre, youngest daughter of Charles I.{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/jul/04/theatre.artsfeatures | title=Power | newspaper=The Guardian | date=4 July 2003 | last1=Billington | first1=Michael }} In 2010, she appeared in Serenading Louie at the Donmar Warehouse. In 2018, she starred in Checkpoint Chana at the Finborough Theatre.{{cite web | url=https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/checkpoint-chana/ | title=Checkpoint Chana – Finborough Theatre }}{{cite web | url=https://www.jewishrenaissance.org.uk/blog/review-theatre-checkpoint-chana | title=Checkpoint Chana ★★★ | date=13 March 2018 }} In 2022, thirty-three years after her original debut,{{Cite web |date=2022-09-02 |title=Cracker of a role as Geraldine Somerville returns to Glass Menagerie at Royal Exchange |url=https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/20878425.33-years-geraldine-somerville-back-glass-menagerie/ |access-date=2023-10-18 |website=Lancashire Telegraph |language=en}} Somerville returned to the Royal Exchange Theatre in The Glass Menagerie, this time in the role of Amanda Wingfield, receiving praise for her "astonishing" performance.{{cite web | url=https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/c/stripped-right-back-production-mesmerises | title=Stripped right back production mesmerises | date=8 September 2022 }} An earlier planned 2020 production had been postponed due to Covid.{{cite web | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/independentpremium/culture/the-glass-menagerie-review-royal-exhange-b2162650.html | title=The Royal Exchange's the Glass Menagerie casts a new, neon light on play – review | website=The Independent|location=London | date=8 September 2022 }} The production, directed by Atri Banerjee, earned positive reviews from critics, with The Daily Telegraph calling it "powerfully heart-wrenching".{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/glass-menagerie-review-post-pandemic-study-isolation-dangerous/ | title=The Glass Menagerie, review: A post-pandemic study in isolation and dangerous illusions | newspaper=The Telegraph | date=8 September 2022 | last1=Allfree | first1=Claire }}

In 2024, Somerville reprised her role as Amanda Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie, reuniting her with director Atri Banerjee. The new production opened at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in March, before moving to the Malvern Festival Theatre, Rose Theatre Kingston, Bristol Old Vic and Theatre Royal Bath, finishing its run at the Alexandra Palace Theatre in June.{{cite web | url=https://www.belgrade.co.uk/stories/the-glass-menagerie-cast-creatives-announcement/ | title=The Glass Menagerie Cast & Creatives Announcement | date=16 February 2024 }}{{cite web | url=https://bristololdvic.org.uk/blog/a-chat-with-geraldine-somerville | title=A chat with Geraldine Somerville }} The production was well received by critics, who praised its "outstanding cast" and credited it with "fully revitalising" Williams's play;{{cite web | url=https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mother-daughter-her-lover-and-their-poet | title=The mother, the daughter, her lover and their poet | date=9 May 2024 }} The Stage described it as "a striking interpretation",{{cite web | url=https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/the-glass-menagerie-review-at-the-rose-theatre-kingston-upon-thames-directed-by-atri-banerjee | title=The Glass Menagerie review at the Rose Theatre, Kingston upon Thames, directed by Atri Banerjee }} whilst the Daily Express called it "an exquisite production".{{cite web | url=https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/theatre/1892910/glass-menagerie-theatre-review-manchester | title=The Glass Menagerie review: An exquisite production conveying authentic emotion | date=26 April 2024 }}

Somerville married stockbroker William Osbourne-Young in 1995, and they have three children.{{Cite news |last=Day |first=Elizabeth |date=2012-03-25 |title=Geraldine Somerville: 'I think I'm at a tricky stage…' |language=en-GB |work=The Observer |url=https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/mar/25/geraldine-somerville-titanic-interview-day |access-date=2023-10-18 |issn=0029-7712}}

{{Reflist}}

• The Stage, "Regional Reviews: 'The Glass Menagerie'", 7 December 1989, Page 25.
• Manchester Evening News, "Why a Beauty Went Bananas", 9 November 1989, Page 30.

• {{IMDb name|id=0813893}}

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Category:Living people

Category:1967 births

Category:20th-century British actresses

Category:21st-century British actresses

Category:Actors from County Meath

Category:Actresses from London

Category:Alumni of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Category:British film actresses

Category:British people of Irish descent

Category:British radio actresses

Category:British Shakespearean actresses

Category:British stage actresses

Category:British television actresses

Category:British voice actresses

Category:Daughters of baronets

Category:Manx people of Irish descent

Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners

Category:Actors educated at Tring Park School for the Performing Arts