Joely Richardson - Career

Career

Possessing an early ambition to become a professional tennis player, she spent two years at a tennis academy in Florida. Richardson then turned to acting. In 1985 she portrayed, via flashbacks, the younger version of the leading character played by her mother in the film Wetherby. After a leading role in Peter Greenaway's cult success Drowning by Numbers (1988), her first major role in front of a mass audience was as Joanna Farley in a 1989 television episode of Poirot, the Agatha Christie based detective series. In a 1989 episode of Jim Henson's The Storyteller, she was cast as a princess. She portrayed a teacher on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the 1989 Channel 4 serial Behaving Badly and fictional Finnish Princess Anna (with "a voice like a Tuba") in the 1991 screen comedy King Ralph.

A year later, she appeared in Shining Through alongside her future brother in law Liam Neeson, where both played Nazis.

In 1993, Richardson appeared in BBC's Lady Chatterley opposite Sean Bean. In 1996, she played fashion designer Anita Campbell-Green in the Disney live-action remake of the animated 101 Dalmatians opposite Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil. In 1998, in the popular television drama The Echo, she played Amanda Powell. The next year, she played in the science fiction/horror film Event Horizon as Lieutenant Starck, executive officer of the research and rescue ship Lewis and Clark, sent to rescue crew of the long-lost experimental ship Event Horizon.

One year later, Richardson appeared opposite Mel Gibson in the film The Patriot, an American film based on the American Revolution. Later that year, she was modelling a necklace, when director Charles Shyer noticed her resemblance to doomed 18th century French Queen Marie Antoinette. Thus, she secured the role of that queen in the 2001 film The Affair of the Necklace. Also in 2000, she appeared opposite Hugh Laurie in Maybe Baby, Ben Elton's film adaptation of his book Inconceivable.

In 2003, Richardson took on the role of Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck, based on the lives of two plastic surgeons in Miami. Her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, has appeared in several episodes, playing her character's mother. In November 2006, it was announced that Richardson would be leaving Nip/Tuck to take care of her sick daughter. She last appeared on the show on 14 November, although creator/writer Ryan Murphy wrote alternate season finale episodes, in case Richardson decided to return. Soon after the season finale, it was announced that Richardson would return for the fifth season of Nip/Tuck, though her role may be limited. In June 2007 it was announced that she would return for 15 of the 22 episodes during the fifth season.

In 2005, Richardson starred in Lies My Mother Told Me, based on a true story about a murderous con artist. In 2007, she played the mother in The Last Mimzy with Timothy Hutton and Chris O'Neil. She also starred in the television drama Wallis & Edward, playing the lead role of Wallis Simpson, lover of Edward, Prince of Wales.

Richardson is signed to Models 1.

On 23 July 2009, it was announced that Richardson had been cast as Queen Catherine Parr in the fourth (and final) season of Showtime's hit period drama The Tudors. The role would reunite her with her ex-husband Tim Bevan, who was part of the show's production team.

Joely has recently joined the cast of TV series Titanic - Blood and Steel in which she will play the role of Countess Markievicz.