Gemma Arterton

At 38 years old, Gemma Arterton has this physical status:

Gemma Christina Arterton (born 2 February 1986) is an English actress, activist, and film director.

She made her stage debut in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe Theatre in 2006, and first appeared on film in the comedy St Trinian's (2007).

In the James Bond film Quantum of Solace, she played Bond Girl Strawberry Fields, earning her an Empire Award for Best Newcomer. Arterton has since appeared in a number of blockbuster films, including Clash of the Titans (2010), Prince of Persia (2013), and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), as well as several smaller, art house photographs such as The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009), Tamara Drewe (2010), Vita and Virginia (2018).

For her role in both acting and directing The Escape, she was named Harper's Bazaar Woman of the Year Award.

Arterton's theatrical highlights include appearances in The Duchess of Malfi (2014), Made in Dagenham (2014), Nell Gwynn (2016), and Saint Joan (2017).

She was nominated for Olivier Awards for her performances on both Nell Gwynn and Made in Dagenham, and the Evening Standard Theatre Award was given to her for the latter. Arterton has operated Rebel Park Productions, a female-led production firm that specializes in producing female-led videos both on and off camera.

She has directed four feature films and two short films.

Arterton has also been known as a strong promoter of the Time's Up, ERA 50:50, and MeToo movements.

Arterton was instrumental in persuading actresses to wear black at the 2018 Baftas in favor of Time's Up, and he has been involved in ERA 50:50, the country's equal pay movement, from its inception.

Early life and education

Arterton was born at North Kent Hospital in Gravesend with polydactylitis, which resulted in extra fingers that were surgically removed shortly after her birth. Sally-Anne Heap's mother runs a cleaning company, and Barry J. Arterton, her father, is a welder. They divorced during Arterton's youth, and she and her older sister, Hannah Arterton, became co-electors. Her matrilineal great-grandmother was a German-Jewish concert violinist.

Arterton attended Gravesend Grammar School for Girls, a Kent state grammar school (now Mayfield Grammar School), and made her amateur debut in Alan Ayckbourn's "The Boy Who Fell into a Book. In a competition at a local festival, her appearance earned her the top actress award.

Arterton left Gravesend Grammar School to attend acting college at the Miskin Theatre in Dartford at the age of 16. She later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), graduating in 2008.

Personal life

On the set of Quantum of Solace, Arterton met production assistant John Nolan, who lived together in London. She had a friendship with Eduardo Muoz, a Spanish stuntman who appeared on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, in 2008. They lived in a London flat together for six months, but they decided to split up after six months.

Arterton married Stefano Catelli in 2010; however, they divorced in 2013 and divorced "by consent" at the Central Family Court in High Holborn in August 2015. Arterton said she "never really believed in exchanging vows" and that she was not positive she would "want to walk down the aisle again." Arterton said in 2013 that she wanted to wait until she had achieved something in acting before having children.

Rory Keenan was married in 2019 and is the first actress to marry her.

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Career

When Arterton was still enrolled in drama school, she was playing Capturing Mary for Stephen Poliakoff's Capturing Mary. Rosaline appeared on Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe Theatre in London in July 2007 before graduating later this year. Head Girl Kelly made her film debut in St Trinian's (2007) as Head Girl Kelly.

She appeared in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace in 2008. Arterton plays Bond Girl Strawberry Fields, a "nice-sized role" chosen from a pool of around fifteen hundred candidates. Arterton's character is described as "the thinking man's crumpet." In the same year, she appeared as the eponymous protagonist in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles on BBC. Elizabeth Bennet appeared in the ITV series Lost in Austen, also in 2008. Alice Creed's 2009 film In which her character is kidnapped and abused in several graphic nude scenes, she had her most controversial role to date. She had to be handcuffed to a bed and wear a ball gag in her mouth throughout the job. And when the camera wasn't on her to support her, she begged tied to the bed. She mused that if she was talking too much, the crew might bring the ball gag back in. "Arterton... handles the demanding physical and emotional demands of her role with a natural ease," Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote.

When Avon's Bond Girl 007 fragrance was launched in October 2008, Arterton was the frontman. Arterton made her West End debut in The Little Dog Laughed, the United Kingdom's premiere. Catherine Earnshaw was first supposed to appear in a new version of Wuthering Heights, but she later left the film.

Arterton appeared in pivotal scenes in the 2010 film Clash of the Titans and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, as the lead in Tamara Drewe. Arterton appeared in The Master Builder, directed by Travis Preston, in 2010 where she was praised for her role as Hilde Wangel. Arterton was nominated for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Rising Star Award in 2011 and she was under consideration for Leading Actress for her roles in Tamara Drewe and Alice Creed's Disappearance. She was selected as a member of Marrakech's top competition jury in November 2012.

Arterton appeared in the action horror film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters as Gretel, opposite Jeremy Renner, who played Hansel. The 3-D film was shot 15 years after Hansel and Gretel killed the witch who kidnapped them. It was first published on January 25, 2013. In January 2014, she appeared in The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster's debut in The Duchess of Malfi, the first performance at Shakespeare's Globe's new indoor theatre. Both the play and Arterton herself received high reviews, as well as Paul Taylor for The Independent. "The luminous Gemma Arterton beautifully captures the Duchess' multifaceted beauty." In the same year, she co-starred with Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick, and Jacki Weaver in The Voices, a psychological thriller film.

Arterton starred in Gemma Bovery as the titular lead in 2015. The film is a reimagining of Gustave Flaubert's 19th century masterpiece Madame Bovary starring Anne Fontaine. Arterton learned to speak French for the role, having never had to use the term before.

Arterton appeared in Made in Dagenham, a stage musical about the Ford sewing machines' strike of 1968 over equal pay for women. She has publicly expressed her support for their cause since its premiere on November 5th, 2014 at the Adelphi Theatre in London. Rita O'Grady, a fictional character, received mixed feedback from critics. "Underpowered central performance from Gemma Arterton as Rita," Simon Edge of the Daily Express screamed over a "understand central effort from her work as Rita." However, Matt Trueman of Variety applauded Arterton for her "all-out star turn" and Paul Taylor of The Independent praised how "Arterton pulls the show together beautifully." Despite the show closing after just five months, Arterton was still nominated for the Olivier Award for best actress in a musical, and went on to win the Evening Standard award for a Newcomer in a Musical.

Arterton claimed in an interview with the Independent newspaper that she was the director Jonathan Glazer's pick for the lead role in his film Under the Skin. Glazer, on the other hand, was forced to recast because Arterton's film was not well known enough for the film to attract investment.

Arterton began performing in the title role in Shakespeare's Globe exchange of Nell Gwynn at the Apollo Theatre in February 2016. Critics lauded Arterton, with Michael Billington of The Guardian quoting her "natural sparkle." She was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play for her appearance in a Play. She was selected as a member of the main competition jury for the 73rd Venice International Film Festival in July 2016. Arterton was also nominated for a BIFA Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in Helen Justineau's "All the Gifts" earlier this year. Her appearance, which was based on a tale set in a dystopian future world ravaged by a zombie pathogen, was generally well researched.

Arterton founded Rebel Park Productions in 2016 to produce female-lead and female-centric film and television shows. Leading Lady Parts, a well-received short film, was produced in favor of Time's Up. Emilia Clarke, Tom Hiddleston, and Gemma Chan were among the film's stars, and it raised funds for the UK Justice and Equality Fund. She appeared in Orpheline (Orphanage), one of four leading roles in Arnaud des Pallières' French language film Orpheline (Orphanage), an area in which she applied her French language skills learned for her role in Gemma Bovery.

In Josie Rourke's interpretation of George Bernard Shaw's classic story Saint Joan, Arterton played Joan. Although the play itself received mixed feedback, Arterton's performance was highly lauded as the show's highlight. Catrin Cole, the fictional young screenwriter, appeared in Their Finest, a wartime romcom about a propaganda film crew during the Second World War. Arterton's performance amongst the impressive cast of supporting actors (Bill Nighy, Sam Claflin, and Eddie Marsan) was generally well received.

The Escape, a largely improvised film about a mother struggling with the breakup of her marriage, was produced and co-created in 2018. The film received rave reviews, and Arterton was nominated for the Best Actress in a British Independent Film by the British Academy of Film and Television Society. Harper's Bazaar magazine named her Woman of the Year for her film work. Arterton was one of 928 new members accepted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018, with 48 percent of whom were female as part of the Academy's continuing effort to boost representation.

Arterton would play late singer Dusty Springfield in a film about her life in 2018. However, there has been no further information about the initiative since.

Arterton appeared in Netflix's Murder Mysteries (which stars Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, and Luke Evans) in 2019. Despite the film's mainly critical reviews, it was watched by 30.9 million Netflix account holders in the first three days of release, then a record for the streaming app. Arterton was a resident of Vita and Virginia, a film about Arterton's character and Virginia Woolf's love for Woolf's novel Orlando: A Biography. Arterton is listed as the film's executive producer. Hayley Alien was also produced and starred in the short film Hayley Alien, which was written and directed by her sister and co-star Hannah Arterton.

Arterton was an executive producer and appeared in the second World War II film, Summerland, directed by Jessica Swale. Arterton had appeared on stage shows Nell Gwynn before working with Swale.

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