Kelly Reilly

Kelly Reilly
Born	18 July 1977 (1977-07-18) (age 32) Surrey, England
Other name(s)	Keilly Reilly
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1995–present

Kelly Reilly (born 18 July 1977) is an award-winning English actress.

Life and career

She was born into a working class family and she grew up in Chessington, Greater London. Her father was a police constable and her mother was a part-time secretary at Kingston Hospital.^[1]

As youth she attended Tolworth girl’s school and there she became interested in drama.^[2] Inspired to seek acting work beyond school, she wrote to the producers of the television drama Prime Suspect and six months later was granted an audition, which she won, for a role in one episode of Prime Suspect (Prime Suspect 4: Inner Circle), which aired on the BBC May 7, 1995. She was seventeen. Six years later, Reilly would work with the star of Prime Suspect, Helen Mirren in Last Orders. When they met, Mirren told Reilly, “Oh I knew I’d see you again."^[3]

Her first professional role was followed by a series of parts on the English stage. She worked with Terry Johnson in four productions, Elton John’s Glasses (1997), The London Cuckolds (1998), The Graduate (2000), and Piano/Forte (2001). Johnson wrote Piano/Forte for her. Said Johnson, “Kelly is possibly the most natural, dyed-in-the-wool, deep-in-the-bone actress I've ever worked with. She is utterly instinctive. She seems to know absolutely what it is to be human.”^[2] Patrick Marber, her director in After Miss Julie (2004) said, “not only is she utterly instinctual but she is also totally honest. She inhabits a part without any mannerism at all, to the extent that you don't even notice her act.”^[2] Despite this enthusiasm, Reilly herself has stated that she learned the most as an actor from Karel Reisz who directed her in The Yalta Game in Dublin (2001). She said, “He was my masterclass. There is no way I would have been able to do Miss Julie if I hadn't done that play.”^[1]

In her work, Reilly has been equally at home in television, film and stage productions. By 2000, Reilly felt she was being typecast in comedy roles and she actively sought out a role as the young Amy in Last Orders, directed by Fred Schepisi. ^[3] This was followed a an edgy role in the stage play Blasted (2001). The Times of London called her “theatrical Viagra” for her willingness to appear nude in such roles. She told a reviewer that after her mother saw her in Blasted she said, “why can't you just do something where you wear a nice dress and be nice?”^[4]

About this time, she also had a series of small but notable roles in such films as Mrs. Henderson Presents and Pride & Prejudice (both 2005). In 2002 she played in a French-language comedy L'Auberge espagnole, (“Pot Luck”) followed by its sequel, Les Poupées Russes (“The Russian Dolls”) in 2005.

Her first lead role came in 2008 in the horror film Eden Lake. In 2009, she had a high profile role on prime time British television in the two-part police drama Above Suspicion. Two major films featuring Reilly are due for release in 2009: Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr., and Triage starring Colin Farrell.

Awards and nominations

In 2004, her performance in After Miss Julie at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star on the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Actress of 2003. At age 26, she was the youngest person ever nominated for the award.^[2]

She was awarded the Best Newcomer Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival for her role as Wendy in ‘’Les Poupées Russes.’’^[2]

Personal life

In October 2008 she was rumoured to be linked with the director Guy Ritchie following his breakup with Madonna.^[5] However, just two months later she announced that she had been engaged to the Israeli actor, Jonah Lotan.^[6] Reilly travels when she is not working and values her anonymity, which she said in 2008 she had been able to maintain despite nearly fifteen years in show business.

Her brother Neil Reilly is a professional golfer.^[2]

Selected credits

References

External links

• Kelly Reilly at the Internet Movie Database