Felicity Jones Biography

Felicity Rose Hadley Jones (born 17 October 1983) is an English actress. She started her professional acting career as a child, appearing at age 12 in The Treasure Seekers (1996). Jones went on to play Ethel Hallow for one season in the television show The Worst Witch and its sequel Weirdsister College. She took time off from acting to attend university at Wadham College, Oxford where she performed in Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors for the Oxford University Dramatic Society, and has worked steadily since graduating in 2006. On radio, she has played the role of Emma Grundy in the BBC's The Archers. In 2008, she appeared in the Donmar Warehouse production of The Chalk Garden.

Since 2006, Jones has appeared in numerous films, including Northanger Abbey (2007), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Chri (2009), and The Tempest (2010). Her performance in the 2011 film Like Crazy was met with critical acclaim, garnering her numerous awards, including a special jury prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. In 2014, her performance as Jane Hawking in The Theory of Everything also met with critical acclaim, garnering her nominations for the Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2016, Jones starred in the adventure-thriller Inferno, the fantasy drama A Monster Calls and the Star Wars anthology film Rogue One as Jyn Erso. In 2016, she received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year.

Early life

Jones was born and brought up in Bournville in the south side of Birmingham, England. Her mother worked in advertising and her father was a journalist. Furthermore, her uncle is a thespian, which prompted Jones' interest in acting as a child. One of her great-great-grandmothers was Italian, from Lucca, Tuscany.

She studied English at Wadham College, Oxford. She appeared in student plays, including Attis in which she played the title role, and, in 2005, Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors for the Oxford University Dramatic Society summer tour to Japan, starring alongside Harry Lloyd.

Career

Jones began acting at the age of 11 at after-school workshop Central Junior Television funded by Central Television. She appeared in the first series of The Worst Witch. When Weirdsister College began in 2001, Jones returned as Hallow. Her longest and best known role around this time was on the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers, where she played Emma Carter until 2009 (currently played by Emerald O'Hanrahan).

In 2003, she starred as Grace May in the BBC drama Servants. She took the leading role in the 2007 ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and made her stage debut in Polly Stenham's That Face at the Royal Court Theatre in April 2007.

In 2008, she appeared in the films Brideshead Revisited and Flashbacks of a Fool, the Doctor Who episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and a revival of Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London. In January 2009, the five-part TV serial The Diary of Anne Frank, in which Jones played the role of Margot Frank alongside Tamsin Greig (as Edith Frank-Hollnder) and Iain Glen (as Otto Frank), was broadcast on BBC One. Later that year in May, she performed in a rehearsed reading of Anthony Minghella's Hang Up at the High Tide Festival. Jones played the role of Julie in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's 2010 film Cemetery Junction. She also appeared in Soulboy and in Julie Taymor's big screen adaptation of The Tempest as Miranda.

On 29 January 2011, Jones won a Special Jury Prize (Dramatic) at the Sundance Film Festival for her performance as Anna in Drake Doremus's Like Crazy. She had to do her own hair and make-up in the film, while the dialogue was entirely improvised. Her performance earned comparisons to Carey Mulligan's Academy Award-nominated role in An Education. She also received the Best New Hollywood Award for this film at the 2011 Hollywood Film Awards. She appeared alongside Gossip Girl actor Ed Westwick in Chalet Girl, a romantic comedy released in March 2011, for which she had to undergo two months of snowboarding training and work undercover in a chalet at St Anton, scrubbing toilets and partying at the Krazy Kanguruh bar in preparation for the role. Jones said that the role was "something of a relief" after a string of costume roles and she was also keen to take on a comic role. Jones performed in Luise Miller, a new translation of Schiller's Kabale und Liebe by Mike Poulton at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London, in June and July 2011. Jones lived with a Catholic family and attended Mass to prepare for the role. In 2011, Jones was announced as the new face of Burberry. In November, she was also announced as the new face of Dolce & Gabbana.

In 2013, Jones portrayed Ellen Ternan in The Invisible Woman. Jones, previously unfamiliar with Ternan for the most part, learned about her life through research, and reflected that she knew she was "in for a challenge" when choosing to work on the film, citing the experience of director Ralph Fiennes and how "methodically done" his performance was. She also co-starred in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was released on 2 May 2014. She played Felicia Hardy; an assistant of Harry Osborn. Jones signed on due to its difference from her previous works.

Jones' current highlight is her 2014 performance as Jane Wilde Hawking in the film The Theory of Everything, a biopic charting the life and love between Wilde Hawking and the world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, with Eddie Redmayne starring as Hawking. After being given the script by her agent, Jones read it in its entirety in one sitting, enjoying that it was a "love story and not a straightforward biopic." She auditioned for the film and its director, James Marsh, offered the part immediately after, surprising Jones who was accustomed to waiting several weeks for a confirmation. Jones was aided by Jane Hawking in preparing for the role, meeting with her. The film has been praised largely due to her and Redmayne's performances. Jane Hawking was so impressed by the portrayal she wondered if it was herself when watching Jones. For her role as Jane, she received widespread acclaim from a number of organizations, including nominations for an Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, a Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.

In February 2015, she was cast as Jyn Erso in the Star Wars stand-alone film Rogue One, with Gareth Edwards directing. Jones's agent recommended the role to her, and she enjoyed the character's search for an identity, drawing inspiration in her movements from Ronda Rousey. The film was released in December 2016 to positive reviews and grossed over $1 billion at the box office. Also in 2016, Jones starred in Inferno, playing a doctor aiding Robert Langdon in his escape. According to director Ron Howard, Jones' only reluctance to signing for the film was the ensuring of her having days off to see the birth of her brother's child. After agreeing to the role, she visited museums and galleries to better understand her character. Jones enjoyed the chemistry between her and Tom Hanks's characters as well as Inferno's overall diversity.

Personal life

In 2013, Jones split from her boyfriend of ten years, sculptor and Internet artist Ed Fornieles, whom she had met at Oxford when he was at the Ruskin School of Art. In 2015, she began dating director Charles Guard. Their engagement was announced in May 2017.

Jones identifies as a feminist.

Filmography

Film

Title	Year	Role(s)	Director
Flashbacks of a Fool	2008	Young Ruth	Baillie Walsh
Brideshead Revisited	2008		Julian Jarrold
Chri	2009	Edme	Stephen Frears
Cemetery Junction	2010		Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant
Soulboy	2010		Shimmy Marcus
The Tempest	2010	Miranda	Julie Taymor
Chalet Girl	2011		Phil Traill
Like Crazy	2011		Drake Doremus
Albatross	2011		Niall MacCormick
Hysteria	2011		Tanya Wexler
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding	2012		Donald Rice
Breathe In	2013	Sophie	Drake Doremus
'	2013		Ralph Fiennes
The Amazing Spider-Man 2	2014	Felicia Hardy	Marc Webb
The Theory of Everything	2014		James Marsh
True Story	2015		Rupert Goold
Collide	2016	Juliette	Eran Creevy
'	2016		J. A. Bayona
Inferno	2016		Ron Howard
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	2016		Gareth Edwards

Television

Title	Year	Role	Notes
'	1996		Television film
'	1998-99		11 episodes
Weirdsister College	2001		13 episodes
Servants	2003		6 episodes
Northanger Abbey	2007		Television film
Cape Wrath	2007		8 episodes
Doctor Who	2008		Episode: "The Unicorn and the Wasp"
'	2009		5 episodes
Page Eight	2011		Television film
Salting the Battlefield	2014		Television film
Girls	2014	Dottie	Episode: "Role-Play"
Saturday Night Live	2017	Host	Episode: "Felicity Jones / Sturgill Simpson"
Star Wars: Forces of Destiny	2017	Jyn Erso (voice)

Theatre

Production	Year(s)	Theatre	Role
'	2005-06	Newbury Theatre	Gerda
That Face	2007	Royal Court Theatre	Mia
'	2008	Donmar Warehouse	Laurel
Luise Miller	2011	Donmar Warehouse

Awards and nominations

Award	Year	Film(s)	Category	Result
AACTA Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress - International
Academy Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Alliance of Women Film Journalists	2014	The Invisible Woman	Most Egregious Age Difference Between the Leading Man and the Love Interest
British Academy Film Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
British Independent Film Awards	2011	Albatross	Best Supporting Actress
	2013	The Invisible Woman	Best Actress
Critics' Choice Movie Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association	2014	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Detroit Film Critics Society	2011	Like Crazy	Best Actress
			Breakthrough Performance
Empire Awards	2012	Like Crazy	Best Female Newcomer
	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
	2017	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story	Best Actress
Golden Globe Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress - Drama
Gotham Awards	2011	Like Crazy	Breakthrough Actor
Hollywood Film Awards	2011	"?	New Hollywood Award
Houston Film Critics Society	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Kids' Choice Awards	2017	Rogue One	Favorite Movie Actress
			Favorite Butt-Kicker
			#Squad (shared with cast)
London Film Critics' Circle	2015	The Theory of Everything	British Actress of the Year
MTV Movie & TV Awards	2017	Rogue One	Best Hero
National Board of Review	2011	Like Crazy	Breakthrough Performance
San Diego Film Critics Society	2014	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Santa Barbara International Film Festival	2015	The Theory of Everything	Cinema Vanguard Award
Satellite Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Saturn Awards	2017	Rogue One	Best Actress in a Film
Screen Actors Guild Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
			Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
St. Louis Film Critics Association	2014	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Sundance Film Festival	2011	Like Crazy	Special Jury Prize
Teen Choice Awards	2015	The Theory of Everything True Story	Choice Movie Actress: Drama
	2017	Rogue One	Choice Sci-Fi Movie Actress
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association	2014	The Theory of Everything	Best Actress
Women Film Critics Circle	2014	The Theory of Everything	The Invisible Woman Award