Natalie Dormer…
Natalie Dormer (born 11 February 1982) is an English actress. She is best known for her roles as Victoria in Casanova, as the ill-fated queen Anne Boleyn in the Showtime series The Tudors, and as Margaery Tyrell in the 2011 HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones.Dormer was born in Reading, Berkshire, and attended Chiltern Edge Secondary School, before moving to Reading Blue Coat School, an independent boys’ school that admits girls in the sixth form. She grew up with her stepfather, mother, sister Samantha, and brother Mark. She suffered from bullying problems during her childhood, and it is something that “still to this day she can’t place why”. At school, Natalie was head-girl, a straight-A student, vice-captain of the school netball team, and she also got to travel the globe with her school’s public speaking team. During her school years, she trained in dance at the Allenova School of Dancing. She describes herself as the “academic hopeful” of the family, and was offered a place to study history at Cambridge, but, in her A Level History exam, did not achieve the A Grade she needed to attend. She decided she would audition for drama schools, and decided to train at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Six months after graduating from the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, Dormer auditioned and won the role of Victoria in Casanova with Heath Ledger and Sienna Miller. This was her film debut and it was released in 2005. The director, Lasse Hallström, was so impressed with Dormer’s comedic timing that he had the script writer expand her part. On the strength of her audition for the role and her performance, she secured a three-film deal with Disney Touchstone which was never exercised.In 2005, Dormer also had a bit part in Distant Shores playing that of a Mobile Woman. After the filming of Casanova, Dormer was out of work for nine months and has said that “It was the best lesson I could have had in the first 12 months of my career”. In 2006, Dormer guest-starred in an episode of Rebus entitled “The Falls”, playing the character Phillippa Balfour.In 2007 and 2008, she played Anne Boleyn in the first two seasons of The Tudors, for which she received positive reviews. Robert Abele of LA Weekly wrote, “Natalie Dormer presents a painterly exquisiteness and complexity in her portrayal of Anne Boleyn…her enigmatic, time-halting loveliness is a boon for The Tudors, and damn near worth losing your head over.”After her character’s death at the end of the second season, The Boston Herald noted that “Dormer’s departure from ‘The Tudors’ leaves a void.” Dormer is related to Jane Dormer, a lady-in-waiting to Mary I. Jane Dormer’s memoirs contain some evidence on Boleyn’s actual age, which is still a source of much academic dispute.
In 2008, she played Moira Nicholson in Miss Marple: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? and appears in a number of forthcoming films: Fence Walker, Flying Lessons and City of Life. Dormer’s Marple appearance aired in the US in the summer of 2009 as part of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery anthology series.In March 2010, she made her stage debut at the Young Vic theatre in London as Mizi in the play Sweet Nothings. In The Observer, theatre critic Susannah Clapp praised the performances of the cast and wrote, “Natalie Dormer is lissome as a dirty, delightful gadabout, pushing aside an entire chess game in order to put down her hat.” After six months of playing Mizi, Dormer went on to film some new roles, including Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Madonna’s film W.E., Pvt. Lorraine in Captain America: The First Avenger and Niamh Cranitch in the BBC court drama Silk, before going on to her next stage role of Pat in .45 at Hampstead Theatre in November 2010.
She returned to The Tudors as Anne Boleyn in a dream sequence for the fourth and final season in mid-2010. This was confirmed when the first promotional picture of the season showed Anne (along with King Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr) on the cover.In June 2010, Dormer was cast in the lead role for the movie adaptation of the Peter Straub novel Shadowland. In June 2011, she joined the cast of the HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, as Margaery Tyrell of the noble House Tyrell. In March 2012, Dormer returned to the Young Vic to play the title role in After Miss Julie, by Patrick Marber.
A self-proclaimed poker lover, Dormer took part in the 2008 PartyPoker.com Women’s World Open in London, where she came in second to Emma Kennedy in the Celebrity Heat. Dormer has stated that Cate Blanchett has been an influence in her career as an actress. On the subject of supernatural beliefs, she was quoted as saying: “I’ve got an open mind. I say I’m an atheist but I wouldn’t mind being visited by a ghost”. She is also a member of the London Fencing Academy.
