Jodhi May is an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 actress.

Early life

Born in Camden Town

Camden Town

-Economy:In recent years, entertainment-related businesses and a Holiday Inn have moved into the area. A number of retail and food chain outlets have replaced independent shops driven out by high rents and redevelopment. Restaurants have thrived, with the variety of culinary traditions found in...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, May first acted at the age of 12 in 1988's A World Apart. The role earned her a Best Actress

Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival)

The Best Actress Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of films at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.-Award Winners:-External links:* * ....

 award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival

1988 Cannes Film Festival

- Jury :*Ettore Scola*Claude Berri*David Robinson*Yelena Safonova*George Miller*Hector Olivera*Nastassja Kinski*Philippe Sarde*Robby Muller*William Goldman-Feature film competition:* A World Apart by Chris Menges...

, shared with her co-stars Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...

 and Linda Mvusi

Linda Mvusi

Linda Mvusi is an actress and architect. Mvusi took an award for best actress at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for her role in the film A World Apart which was directed by Chris Menges. Mvusi was the first South African to get a best Actress award at Cannes...

. She remains the youngest recipient of the award.

Other than a brief lull while studying English

English studies

English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...

 at Wadham College, Oxford

Wadham College, Oxford

Wadham College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, located at the southern end of Parks Road in central Oxford. It was founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, wealthy Somerset landowners, during the reign of King James I...

, she has had near constant work in the subsequent two decades, and can regularly be seen on film, television and the British stage. She is often cast as an innocent abused, or an extremely intelligent woman having a breakdown.

Career

Notable roles have included Alice Munro in Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans as Lea Papin in Sister My Sister

Sister My Sister

Sister My Sister is a 1995 film starring British actresses Joely Richardson, Jodhi May and Julie Walters. The film is directed by Nancy Meckler and written by Wendy Kesselman, based on her own play, My Sister in This House. Both the play and the subsequent film deal with societal repression and its...

; as Florence Banner in the controversial BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 adaptation of Tipping the Velvet

Tipping the Velvet (TV serial)

Tipping the Velvet is a 2002 BBC television drama serial based on the bestselling debut novel by Sarah Waters of the same name. It originally screened in three episodes on BBC Two and was produced for the BBC by the independent production company Sally Head Productions...

, Queen Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

 in the first adaptation

The Other Boleyn Girl (2003 film)

The Other Boleyn Girl is a 2003 BBC television film, adapted from Philippa Gregory's novel of the same name.-Production:This was a low production budget of £750,000. The drama was shot using modern camera techniques and the cast spent four weeks in workshops improvising the script with the director...

 of The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl is a historical fiction novel written by British author Philippa Gregory, loosely based on the life of 16th-century aristocrat Mary Boleyn. Reviews were mixed; some said it was a brilliantly claustrophobic look at palace life in Tudor England, while others have consistently...

, and as Sabina Spielrein

Sabina Spielrein

Sabina Naftulovna Spielrein , born 7 November 1885, died 12 August 1942] , was one of the first female psychoanalysts. She studied under Carl Gustav Jung, with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship...

 in the play The Talking Cure. May has also directed a short film, and has a script in development. In August 2005, May appeared in Blackbird by David Harrower

David Harrower

David Harrower is a Scottish playwright who lives in Glasgow.His agents are Casarotto Ramsay.-Career:...

 alongside Roger Allam

Roger Allam

Roger Allam is an English actor, known primarily for his stage career, although he has performed in film and television. He played Inspector Javert in the original London production of the stage musical Les Misérables....

 at the Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

 in a production by German star director Peter Stein. The play got a transfer to the Albery Theatre in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in February 2006. Blackbird subsequently won a best new play award.

In 2010 she played the lead role of Kay in Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon is an English novelist and poet, best known for his 2003 novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.- Life and work :...

's play Polar Bears

Polar Bears (play)

Polar Bears is a play by British writer Mark Haddon first produced by the Donmar Warehouse in London. Following previews from 1 April 2010, the play opened on 6 April 2010 where it ran until 22 May...

 at the Donmar Warehouse. She is due to star as Janet Stone in upcoming noir thriller I, Anna, alongside Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel Byrne

Gabriel James Byrne is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, writer, cultural ambassador and audiobook narrator. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined Londo's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's screen debut came in the Irish soap opera The Riordans and the...

, Charlotte Rampling

Charlotte Rampling

Charlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress. Her career spans four decades in English-language as well as French and Italian cinema.- Early life :...

, Eddie Marsan

Eddie Marsan

Edward Maurice C. "Eddie" Marsan is an English actor.-Early life:Marsan was born in Stepney, London to a working class family; his father was a lorry driver and his mother a school dinner lady and teacher's assistant...

 and Honor Blackman

Honor Blackman

Honor Blackman is an English actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers and Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger .-Early life:...

.

ITV1 has confirmed her as part of the cast of its 2012 adaption of Daphne du Maurier's

Daphne du Maurier

Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...

 novel The Scapegoat

The Scapegoat (2012 film)

The Scapegoat is an upcoming film adaption of Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel of the same name, commissioned by ITV1. The drama is written and directed by Charles Sturridge and stars Matthew Rhys as lookalike characters John Standing and Johnny Spence....

.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1988	A World Apart A World Apart (film) A World Apart is a 1988 anti-Apartheid drama, written by Shawn Slovo and directed by Chris Menges. It is based on the lives of Slovo's parents, Ruth First and Joe Slovo. The film was a co-production between companies from the UK and Zimbabwe, where the movie was filmed...	Molly Roth	Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress Best Actress Award (Cannes Film Festival) The Best Actress Award is an award presented at the Cannes Film Festival. It is chosen by the jury from the 'official section' of films at the festival. It was first awarded in 1946.-Award Winners:-External links:* * ....   Evening Standard British Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer
1990	Max and Helen	Miriam Weiss	TV movie
	The Gift	Sonia Parsons	TV mini-series
	Eminent Domain	Ewa
1991	For the Greater Good	Rose Kellner	TV movie
1992	The Last of the Mohicans The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film) The Last of the Mohicans is a 1992 historical epic film set in 1757 during the French and Indian War and produced by Morgan Creek Pictures. It was directed by Michael Mann and based on James Fenimore Cooper's novel of the same name, although it owes more to George B. Seitz's 1936 film adaptation...	Alice Munro
1994	Second Best Second Best (film) Second Best is a 1994 film produced by Sarah Radclyffe and directed by Chris Menges. It closely follows the 1991 novel of the same name by David Cook, who also wrote the screenplay.-Plot:...	Alice
	Sister My Sister Sister My Sister Sister My Sister is a 1995 film starring British actresses Joely Richardson, Jodhi May and Julie Walters. The film is directed by Nancy Meckler and written by Wendy Kesselman, based on her own play, My Sister in This House. Both the play and the subsequent film deal with societal repression and its...	Lea	Valladolid International Film Festival Award for Best Actress
1995	Signs and Wonders	Claire Palmore	TV movie
	The Scarlet Letter	Pearl	voice
1997	The Gambler	Anna Snitkina	Silver Dolphin Award for Best Actress
	The Woodlanders The Woodlanders The Woodlanders is a novel by Thomas Hardy. It was published in 1887.-Plot summary:The story takes place in a small woodland village called Little Hintock, and concerns the efforts of an honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne, to marry his childhood sweetheart, Grace Melbury...	Marty South
1999	Aristocrats	Sarah	TV mini-series
	Warriors Warriors (TV series) Warriors is a British television drama serial, written by Leigh Jackson, produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark and directed by Peter Kosminsky. It starred Matthew Macfadyen, Damian Lewis and Ioan Gruffudd. The music was written by Debbie Wiseman...	Emma	TV movie
	The Turn of the Screw	Miss	TV movie
2000	The House of Mirth The House of Mirth (2000 film) The House of Mirth is a 2000 film version of Edith Wharton's 1905 novel The House of Mirth. The film was written and directed by Terence Davies and stars Gillian Anderson.-Plot:...	Grace Julia Stepney
2001	Dish	Mo	short
	The Escapist	Christine
	Round About Five	Bicycle Courier	short
2002	Tipping the Velvet	Florence Banner	TV series
	Daniel Deronda Daniel Deronda (TV serial) Daniel Deronda is a British television serial drama adapted by Andrew Davies from the George Eliot novel of the same name. The serial was directed by Tom Hooper, produced by Louis Marks, and was first broadcast in three parts on BBC One from 24 November to 7 December 2002...	Mirah Lapidoth	TV movie
2003	The Other Boleyn Girl The Other Boleyn Girl (2003 film) The Other Boleyn Girl is a 2003 BBC television film, adapted from Philippa Gregory's novel of the same name.-Production:This was a low production budget of £750,000. The drama was shot using modern camera techniques and the cast spent four weeks in workshops improvising the script with the director...	Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...	TV movie
	The Mayor of Casterbridge The Mayor of Casterbridge The Mayor of Casterbridge , subtitled "The Life and Death of a Man of Character", is a tragic novel by British author Thomas Hardy. It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge . The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, all set in a fictional rustic England...	Elizabeth Jane	TV movie
2004	Blinded	Rachel Black
2005	On a Clear Day	Angela
	Bye Bye Blackbird	Nina
	Friends and Crocodiles Friends and Crocodiles Friends and Crocodiles is a one-off British television drama production, written and directed by Stephen Poliakoff and first broadcast on BBC One on 15 January 2006.-Overview:...	Lizzie Thomas	TV movie
	The Best Man	Tania
	The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag	Jean Ibbotson	TV movie
2006	Land of the Blind	Joe's Mother	uncredited
	The Amazing Mrs Pritchard The Amazing Mrs Pritchard The Amazing Mrs Pritchard was a British drama series that aired on BBC One in 2006. Produced by Kudos, it was written by Sally Wainwright and stars Jane Horrocks in the title role of a woman with no previous political experience who becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.-Background:Sally...	Miranda Lennox	TV series (6 episodes)
2007	Nightwatching Nightwatching Nightwatching is a 2007 film about the artist Rembrandt and the creation of his painting The Night Watch. The film is directed by Peter Greenaway and stars Martin Freeman as Rembrandt, with Eva Birthistle as his wife Saskia van Uylenburg, Jodhi May as his lover Geertje Dircx, and Emily Holmes as...	Geertje Geertje Dircx Geertje Dircx was hired by Rembrandt van Rijn as a wetnurse to the painter's son Titus and also became Rembrandt's model and lover. Rembrandt furthered her being imprisoned after she had charged him with breach of promise.-In Rembrandt's service:Geertje was born in Edam. Between 1630 and 1640,...
	The Street The Street (TV series) The Street is a British television drama series created by Jimmy McGovern and produced by Granada Television for the BBC. The series follows the lives of various residents of an unnamed street in Manchester and features an all-star cast including Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, Jane Horrocks, Bob...	Jean Lefferty	TV series (1 episode: "Episode #2.6")
2008	Flashbacks of a Fool Flashbacks of a Fool Flashbacks of a Fool is a 2008 British drama film about a Hollywood actor who, following the death of his childhood best friend, reflects upon his life and what might have been, had he stayed in England...	Evelyn Adams
	Einstein and Eddington Einstein and Eddington Einstein and Eddington is a British single drama produced by Company Pictures and the BBC, in association with HBO. It featured David Tennant as British scientist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, and Andy Serkis as Albert Einstein...	Elsa Einstein	TV movie
	Defiance Defiance (2008 film) Defiance is a 2008 World War II era film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Poland during the Second World War...	Tamara Skidelsky
2009	Emma Emma (2009 TV serial) Emma is a four-part BBC television drama serial adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Emma, first published in 1815. The episodes were written by Sandy Welch, acclaimed writer of previous BBC costume-dramas Jane Eyre and North and South, and directed by Jim O'Hanlon...	Anne Taylor	TV mini-series (4 episodes)
	Sleep With Me	Lelia	TV movie
2010	Blood and Oil	Claire Unwin	TV movie
	Strike Back Strike Back (TV series) Chris Ryan's Strike Back is a six-part British television series based on the novel of the same name written by best-selling author and former soldier of the Special Air Service, Chris Ryan. It was produced by Left Bank Pictures for Sky1...	Layla Thompson	TV series (6 episodes)
2011	The Jury II	Diana Bulmore	TV series (5 episodes)
	I, Anna	Janet Stone	filming
2012	The Scapegoat The Scapegoat (2012 film) The Scapegoat is an upcoming film adaption of Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel of the same name, commissioned by ITV1. The drama is written and directed by Charles Sturridge and stars Matthew Rhys as lookalike characters John Standing and Johnny Spence....		In production

External links