London River - Brenda Blethyn
After twenty years of hard work on stage and television, there are not many
other actresses who deserved the success, recognition and stardom which
Brenda Blethyn has now achieved.
Born in 1946 in Ramsgate in Kent, England, she started her career at British
Rail in the 1960s. Saving money during her time there, she took a risk and
enrolled herself at The Guildford School of Acting in Guildford, Surrey,
England and soon was able to leave British Rail behind. Her risk paid off. By
the mid‐1970s, she was working on stage, eventually joining the National
Theatre Company in 1975.
It was the 1980s, however, that saw Blethyn move onto the small screen
when she appeared in a BBC2 Playhouse presentation called BBC2 Playhouse: Grown‐Ups (1980). She
still remained relatively unknown with the viewing public during the 1980s, despite her consistent
work. In 1990, she played the supporting cast member role of Mrs. Jenkins in film based on the Roald
Dahl novel The Witches (1990), with Anjelica Huston, Jane Horrocks and Mai Zetterling. That led to
her role in A River Runs Through It (1992) and the television film "Screen One: The Bullion Boys"
(1993). It was then back to a TV series in 1994 with Outside Edge" (1994).
It is without a doubt that 1997 will be remembered as her biggest year to date. She was cast by her
old friend Mike Leigh in the film Secrets & Lies (1996) as Cynthia Rose Purley, opposite highly talented
Marianne Jean‐Baptiste. The film received rave reviews and Blethyn won a BAFTA Film Award and
subsequently received an Academy Award® nomination for her role, along with Jean‐Baptiste. She
received her second Oscar nomination in Little Voice (1998).
Brenda Blethyn learned French for her role as Elizabeth.
Interview Brenda Blethyn
Brenda Blethyn discusses LONDON RIVER at the Toronto Film Festival:
http://www.tributemovies.com/interviews/Brenda+Blethyn+(London+River)/Star/37348
