Profile of Brenda Blethyn on Famous Like Me

Brenda Blethyn OBE (born Brenda Ann Bottle February 20, 1946 in Ramsgate, Kent, England) is a British actress, one of nine children born to a working-class Roman Catholic family. She is one of the UK's most popular character actresses.

Brenda Blethyn originally trained as a secretary, working for British Rail. On splitting from her husband (whose name she retains), she opted to turn her hobby of amateur dramatics to her professional advantage. After studying at the Guildford School of Acting, she went onto the London stage, performing several seasons at the National Theatre before winning the London Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1980 for the play Steaming. In the same year, she was cast by director Mike Leigh in his Grown Ups, the start of a professional relationship which would later earn both huge acclaim.

She had developed a reputation as a fine Shakespearean actress on stage by the time she won two key roles in the BBC's complete works of Shakespeare during the early 1980s, playing Cordelia in King Lear and Joan of Arc in the Henry VI cycle. Radio work also followed: Blethyn appeared alongside Robert Bathurst and others in the popular BBC Radio 4 comedy series Dial M for Pizza.

Blethyn performed in a variety of British television programmes, including episodes of Alas Smith & Jones and several series of the sitcom Chance in a Million opposite Simon Callow, before making her film début in The Witches in 1990. She played Brad Pitt's mother in the film A River Runs Through It, directed by Robert Redford.

During the 1990s Blethyn continued to work in television, with character parts in the BBC adaptation of Hanif Kureishi's The Buddha of Suburbia and the ITV cricketing comedy-drama series Outside Edge, based on the play by Jack Rosenthal.

In 1996 Blethyn's performance in Secrets & Lies, directed by Mike Leigh, garnered her an Academy Award nomination; co-star Marianne Jean-Baptiste was also nominated for her performance in the same film. In 1998 she was again Oscar nominated, this time for Best Supporting Actress for her role as the domineering yet needy mother in Little Voice opposite Jane Horrocks and Michael Caine.

Blethyn also performed as a voice artiste in The Wild Thornberrys Movie.

Blethyn is referenced in the lyrics to the Half Man Half Biscuit song "We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune": It's a cricketing farce / With a thickening plot / Act one, scene one: / Brenda Blethyn gets shot.

In September 2005, Brenda Blethyn was the subject of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

She was married once and kept her husband's surname ("Blethyn") as her professional name after they divorced. Her current partner is UK art director Michael Mayhew.

Selected Filmography

• Pride and Prejudice (2005)
• Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005) (voice)
• Beyond the Sea (2004)
• The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002) (voice)
• Saving Grace (2000)
• RKO 281 (1999) (TV)
• Little Voice (1998)
• Secrets & Lies (1996)
• The Buddha of Suburbia (1993) (miniseries)
• A River Runs Through It (1992)
• The Witches (1990)
• That Uncertain Feeling (1985) (miniseries)
• Chance in a Million (1984) (TV series)
• King Lear (1982) (TV)
• Yes, Minister (TV Series)

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