Dare To Own It
A talented and charming actress, writer, director and producer, Emily Mortimer continues to challenge herself with a variety of creative endeavors, leaving audiences captivated on the big and small screens alike.
Mortimer is currently in production on her directorial debut “The Pursuit of Love” for BBC One, a three-part mini-series she has adapted from the 1945 novel of the same name by Nancy Mitford. Set in England between the First and Second World Wars, Lily James, Emily Beecham, Dominic West and Andrew Scott star in the comedic tale of the upper-class Radlett family, focusing on daughter Linda (James) and her cousin Fanny (Beecham). Consumed by a desire for love and marriage, the two women and their friendship are put to the test as Fanny settles for a steady life and Linda decides to follow her heart, to increasingly wild and outrageous places.
As an actor, she will next be seen in Jeffrey Lieber and Charlie McDonnell’s sci-fi Quibi series “Don’t Look Deeper,” opposite Don Cheadle and Helena Howard. The series is set to premiere on July 6, 2020. Following, she will star in Natalie Erika James’s “Relic,” opposite Bella Heathcote and Robyn Nevin. The horror film follows three generations of women who are haunted by a manifestation of the grandmother’s dementia that consumes their family’s home. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival to high critical acclaim and will be released by IFC Midnight on July 10, 2020. Mortimer is also set to star in and executive produce Entertainment One’s television adaptation of Laura Sims’s debut novel Looker, under her King Bee production banner.
In 2018, Mortimer starred as ‘Jane Banks’ in Rob Marshall’s “Mary Poppins Returns” opposite Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda. A sequel to the beloved award-winning classic, the film was nominated for a 2019 Golden Globe Award in the category of Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and named one of the Top Films of 2018 by the National Board of Review. Other recent films include; Isabel Coixet’s critically acclaimed “The Bookshop,” which was the recipient of three Goya Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay; Sally Potter’s “The Party,” opposite Timothy Spall, Kristin Scott Thomas and Patricia Clarkson; and Stacy Cochran’s “Write When You Get Work,” which debuted at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival.
Previously, Mortimer co-wrote and co-starred in two seasons of “Doll & Em” on HBO, with her real-life best friend, Dolly Wells. The critically praised series is a half-hour comedy with Emily and Dolly starring as slightly fictionalized versions of themselves. The series was produced by Mortimer’s King Bee Productions, with the first season premiering at the 2013 London Film Festival. The second season was released on March 19, 2014.
Mortimer’s break-out performance was in Nicole Holofcener’s “Lovely & Amazing” opposite Catherine Keener. The film won her rave reviews and an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actress. She went on to star in David Mackenzie’s film, “Young Adam” opposite Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton, and earned nominations for Best British Actress at the Empire Awards as well as Best British Actress in a Supporting Role at the London Film Critics Circle Awards. Following that, she starred opposite Ryan Gosling in the Oscar® nominated comedy, “Lars and the Real Girl.”
Among her numerous other film credits are Til Schweiger’s “Head Full of Honey;” Michael Goi’s “Mary” opposite Gary Oldman; Greg Kinnear’s “Phil;” Woody Allen’s “Match Point;” Ritesh Batra’s “The Sense of an Ending;” Nic Mathieu’s “Spectral;” Paolo Sorrentino’s “Rio, eu te amo” (“Rio, I Love You”); Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” opposite Sacha Baron Cohen, which received 11 Academy Award® nominations; Hisako Matsui’s “Leonie;” Jesse Peretz’ “Our Idiot Brother” opposite Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks and Zooey Deschanel; Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” opposite Leonardo DiCaprio; Brad Anderson’s “Transsiberian” opposite Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley; David Mamet’s “Redbelt;” “Dear Frankie” opposite Gerard Butler which earned her a London Film Critics Award nomination; “City Island,” opposite Andy Garcia; “Harry Brown,” opposite Michael Caine; Stephen Fry’s “Bright Young Things;” Kenneth Branagh’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost;” Shekhar Kapur’s “Elizabeth;” “The Ghost and the Darkness” with Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer; “Formula 51” with Samuel L. Jackson; Wes Craven’s “Scream 3;” “The Kid” opposite Bruce Willis; and the “Pink Panther 1 and 2” opposite Steve Martin.
Mortimer has lent her voice to John Lasseter’s beloved sequel, “Cars 2,” as the beautiful British spy car, ‘Holley Shiftwell’ as well as to the character of young Sophie in Walt Disney Studios’ English language version of “Howl’s Moving Castle,” directed by the renowned Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki.
In addition to her film projects, Mortimer has starred in a range of television projects for the BBC and played the recurring role of ‘Phoebe,’ a love interest for Alec Baldwin’s character, during the 2007 season of the hit NBC series “30 Rock.” Additional television credits include three seasons HBO’s “The Newsroom” created by Aaron Sorkin and co-starring opposite Jeff Daniels.
On stage, Mortimer’s theatre credits include her off-Broadway debut at the Atlantic Theater in the world premiere of Jez Butterworth’s “Parlour Song,” directed by Neil Pepe. In November 2007, Mortimer was invited by Eric Idle (“Monty Python”) to take part in two special performances of his play, “What About Dick?” with a stellar cast that included Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Eric Idle, Eddie Izzard, and Tracy Ullman. Additional theatre credits include productions of “The Merchant of Venice” for the Lyceum Theatre and “The Lights” for the Royal Court.
On the production side, Mortimer and her husband, Alessandro Nivola, run King Bee Productions. As part of the first-look television deal signed in 2017, it was recently announced that Entertainment One has acquired the television rights to their latest production, “State of Wonder.” Based on Anne Patchett’s novel of the same name, the series follows ‘Dr. Marina Singh’ as she journeys into the depths of the Amazon rain forest in search of her former mentor, who has vanished while conducting research.
King Bee premiered their latest film “To Dust” at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival where it received the coveted Audience Award. Starring Matthew Broderick and Géza Röhrig, the story follows Shmuel, a Hasidic cantor in Upstate New York, distraught by the untimely death of his wife, as he struggles to find religious solace while secretly obsessing over how her body will decay.
The production company has several projects in development including the film, “The Man Who Never Died,” which they are producing in partnership with Blumhouse Productions. Based on the book of the same title by William Adler, the movie is a biopic about folk hero Joe Hill whose trial and execution have been the cause of speculation for the last century. King Bee is also producing “Respectable,” written and directed by Louis Mellis (“Sexy Beast”) in partnership with producers Jim Wilson and Ted Hope. In addition, King Bee is developing a television series based on Kathy Lette’s comic novel “The Boy Who Fell to Earth” about her relationship with her son who has Asperger’s.
Mortimer was born in London, England – the daughter of famed writer Sir John Mortimer. She attended St. Paul’s Girls School in Hammersmith, London and went on to study English and Russian at Oxford University. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and their two children.
Resources
LINKS:
- IMDB: Emily Mortimer
- INSTAGRAM: @emortimer
- TWITTER: @EMortimer
QUOTES:
“It stops being about you and it starts being about helping them tell the story.”
“A major thing is to not get hung up on failing.”
“The sort of amazing continual challenge of the job that we do is that you always are starting from the beginning.”
VIDEOS:
Credits:
- WRITER: Alysia Livingston
- WRITER: Lizzy Dalla Betta
- SOUND DESIGN: Zachary Jameson
- WEBSITE & GRAPHICS: Chase Jennings
- ASSISTANT: Elle Powell
- SOCIAL OUTREACH: Bebe Katsenes