Emily Watson's Real Name: Emily Watson

Quick answer: Emily Watson is known professionally and in published profiles as Emily Watson. Encyclopedia.com dates her birth to January 14, 1967, in London. The Guardian, in an August 2000 interview, described her as a 33-year-old Londoner, which is consistent with that year (Encyclopedia.com; The Guardian).

Real name and early life

The sources used here do not independently document a longer legal form. The Guardian says she had a middle-class upbringing in London, with a father who was an architect and a mother who was a teacher, then studied English at Bristol University. Drama schools turned her down before the Drama Studio in west London accepted her; she later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Encyclopedia.com likewise records literature study at Bristol, training at Drama Studio London, and RSC membership in 1992–93. The Guardian says she was 25 when she began acting professionally and was still unknown at 29 when von Trier cast her.

Career highlights

She made her film debut as Bess McNeill in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996), playing a woman from a small Scottish community who marries a foreign oil-rig worker, the Guardian says. Encyclopedia.com lists a cluster of 1996–97 best-actress honors for the role, including prizes from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics, and the Guardian says the performance brought her first Academy Award nomination. A second Oscar nomination followed for Hilary and Jackie (1998), in which both sources say she played the cellist Jacqueline du Pré; Encyclopedia.com also notes a British Independent Film Award for that film and a 2000 London Critics Circle award. The Guardian also notes that she starred opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Jim Sheridan's The Boxer (1997). Encyclopedia.com lists additional mid-1990s credits including The Mill on the Floss and Metroland, then Cradle Will Rock and Angela's Ashes, both of which came out in 1999, and then later by Trixie and The Luzhin Defence (both 2000). Encyclopedia.com records that she married the actor Jack Waters in 1995.

Name notes for searchers

Emily Watson is the name used in profiles and credits. She should not be confused with Emma Watson of the Harry Potter films. Searchers looking for the star of Breaking the Waves or Hilary and Jackie are usually aiming at this Emily Watson.