Juliet Aubrey

A talented, intelligent actress of understated charisma, Juliet Aubrey became a BAFTA-winning sensation in her native Britain after starring as the cerebral and corseted Dorothea opposite Rufus Sewell in the wildly acclaimed 1994 Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Middlemarch. Aubrey, who had graduated from London's Central School of Speech and Drama only a year before landing her starring role, reacted to the sudden onslaught of fame by hightailing it to India for a year. When she returned, she began taking parts in such small-scale productions as Michael Winterbottom's Go Now (1995) and Welcome to Sarajevo (1997). Of Welsh and English parentage, Aubrey was raised the daughter of a doctor and nurse in Fleet, Hampshire. Interested in performing from a young age (an interest she apparently shared with her cousin, best known as U2's the Edge), she acted in school productions until heading for King's College, London, where she studied archeology. During her second year of university she went on a dig in Naples and ended up joining a theatre troupe and singing in bars to earn a living. Upon her return to London, Aubrey enrolled at the Central School, where she trained with the likes of Jennifer Ehle and Angus MacFadyen. After landing roles in two continental European productions, she got her big break in Middlemarch, a miniseries that proved to be excessively popular among British television viewers. On the heels of her return from her year-long sojourn in India, Aubrey starred as the steadfastly loyal girlfriend of a man (Robert Carlyle) stricken with MS in Go Now and although the film failed to make much of a commercial impression, Aubrey's performance earned critical praise. She went on to collaborate once more with Winterbottom, playing the wife of a British journalist sent to the former Yugoslavia in Welcome to Sarajevo, and appeared in a number of low-key European productions. She also starred in Roberto Faenza's acclaimed L'Amante Perduto (1999), a drama that cast Aubrey as a woman living with her family in Israel who becomes convinced that a young stranger is really her son who was killed years before in London. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide