Essie Davis Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Profession Actress
Australian nationality
Birth January 7, 1970 (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia)

BIOGRAPHY
Essie Davis was born in Australia, in the depths of Tasmania, in 1970. She is the youngest of a family of seven children. The future actress studied at the University of Tasmania before joining the Australian National Institute of Drama in Sydney.

The young woman took her first steps as an actress for the theater and distinguished herself in particular with the Bell Shakespeare Company upon obtaining her diploma from the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She landed the legendary role of Juliet in 1993 in Shakespeare ‘s Romeo and Juliet , which she performed on stage.

Essie Davis then naturally moved towards the big screen and starred opposite Geoffrey Rush in Dad and Dave: Our Selection in 1995. In parallel with her career in the theater, the young woman also distinguished herself on Australian television, in various TV series and TV films like Blackrock , Sea Brigade , Murder Call, Murder Frequency or Young Lions . Little by little, the Australian is building a solid reputation and her talent is recognized in the land of kangaroos.

In 2003, the actress decided to conquer Hollywood and managed to land the role of Maggie in the blockbusters Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolution . The following year, Essie shocked the spectators of Girl with a Pearl Earring , a biopic on the painter Johannes Vermeer ( Colin Firth ). The young woman lends her features to Catharina Vermeer, the wife of the famous artist, jealous of the attention the latter pays to their servant, the sweet Griet, played by Scarlett Johansson .

However, Essie did not abandon the theater and achieved enormous success thanks to her lively interpretation of Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, the play written by Tennessee Williams . She performed at the London National Theater and won a Laurence Olivier Award for this role. Her talent then took her to Broadway where she received a Tony Award nomination for her role as Dottie in Tom Stoppard ‘s Jumpers .

In 2005, the actress played Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd , a television film produced by the BBC. She plays alongside Ray Winstone . She also continued her career on the big screen by appearing in compatriot Baz Luhrmann ‘s landmark blockbuster Australia . There she met other famous Australian actors, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman . Previously, the talented actress tried her hand at the horror/spooky genre in Billy O’Brien ‘s Isolation . This film on the theme of cloning won the Grand Prix at the Gérardmer Fantastic Film Festival in 2005.

Essie Davis then turned to lighter films and comedies; We can thus find her in the family films Charlotte’s Little World and The Kingdom of Ga’Hoole – The Legend of the Guardians where she lends her voice to the character of Marella.

In 2011, we found the actress in the mini-series Cloudstreet . She plays Dolly Pickles in this evocation of the life of two Australian families between 1943 and 1963. She then shines in the series La Gifle alongside Jonathan LaPaglia and Melissa George . The show follows the repercussions of a slap inflicted by an adult on a child according to the protagonists who witnessed the scene. She always manages to alternate television and cinema with great ease. She joins the cast of Jonathan Teplitzky ‘s Burning Man , a drama starring Matthew Goode .

In 2012, Essie landed a role that would further amplify her popularity; she is in fact hired to lend her features to Phryne Fisher, a seasoned and glamorous detective in Miss Fisher Investigates . As of today, the hit series set in the 1920s is in its third season.

In 2014, Essie returned to the horror genre for Jennifer Kent in Mister Babadook . The actress plays Amelia, a mother raising her child alone and finding herself confronted with a monster straight out of a storybook. Having become a respected actress, Davis was noticed by the production of Game of Thrones in 2015 which offered her a role close to her, that of a theater actress in season 6 of the famous series. The one who says she wants to play roles that deeply touch people will have the difficult task of playing Cersei Lannister in the play “The Bloody Hand” which traces the history of Port Réal. The theater troupe around the character of Essie Davis will be at the center of one of the intrigues of this new season of Game of Thrones. Note that the actress has been the wife since 2002 of Australian filmmaker Justin Kurzel to whom we owe the recent Macbeth and the next Assassin’s Creed . The couple had 2 children.