Kristin Scott Thomas can look entirely composed and still make us feel a character’s impatience or longing. We rate her most when the part gives her more to do than look formidable.
Fi1m perspective
Put Kristin Scott Thomas’s Diana Taverner beside Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb in Slow Horses (2022), and the joke begins with their clothes. She is immaculate; he looks overdue for a wash. Guy Speranza puts Lamb in a neglected raincoat and socks with holes in, making her head-office tailoring funnier without requiring a line. We like Scott Thomas in this company, though the series belongs chiefly to Oldman.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), in which she played Fiona, was her breakthrough; The English Patient (1996) gave her a romantic lead as Katharine Clifton. Hollywood work followed, but from the late 1990s she increasingly turned towards French cinema and theatre. Robert Altman’s Gosford Park (2001) still made use of her as Sylvia McCordle in an upper-class British setting. Playing Juliette in the French drama I’ve Loved You So Long (2008) gave her a substantial lead beyond that familiar setting.
For us, Katharine remains the clearest reason to look beyond the coolness. Anthony Minghella’s film is carefully made and sometimes too slow, and Scott Thomas supplies an urgency it badly needs. Ralph Fiennes keeps Almásy difficult to read, leaving her to make the desire between them matter. We were moved by how much she wants from a man who gives so little away. That gives us a reason to care even when Minghella is taking his time.
The danger is that the poise becomes the entire job. She has often been cast as elegant, reserved women, and the familiar description of her as icy misses what makes Katharine persuasive: the strength of her wanting. Slow Horses uses the formidable version well, but it is an ensemble pleasure rather than the fullest account of what she can do. We would start with The English Patient, provided there is an uninterrupted evening to spare and some patience for the pace.
Biography
Dame Kristin Scott Thomas is a British actress. Born in Redruth, Cornwall, she trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London before moving to Paris, where she worked as an au pair. She made her film debut in Under the Cherry Moon (1986) and gained early recognition with A Handful of Dust (1988).
She is known for roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), The English Patient (1996), Mission: Impossible (1996), The Horse Whisperer (1998), Gosford Park (2001), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Darkest Hour (2017) and Tomb Raider (2018). On television she has appeared in Fleabag (2019) and stars as Diana Taverner in the Apple TV+ series Slow Horses (2022–).
Scott Thomas won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Four Weddings and a Funeral and the Olivier Award for Best Actress for The Seagull (2008). She received an OBE in 2003 and a DBE in 2015 for services to drama.
