Kristin Scott Thomas OBE (born 24 May 1960) is an Academy Award-nominated English actress.Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her father was a pilot for the Royal Navy and died in a flying accident in 1964, and she is the older sister of the actress Serena Scott Thomas. She is the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas, who was Black Rod in the House of Lords, and a more distant grand niece of Capt. Robert F. Scott, who was the ill fated explorer who lost the race to the South Pole. Her last name is an amalgam of the last names of those two families.
Scott Thomas's childhood home was Dorset, England. Her mother remarried another Royal Navy pilot, who also died in a flying accident six years after the death of her father. Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, and on graduation attended drama college. But on being told she would never be a good enough actor, she left at the age of 19 to work as an au pair in Paris.
Speaking French fluently, she studied acting at the École nationale supérieure des arts et techniques de théâtre (ENSATT) in Paris, and on graduation was cast opposite pop star Prince as the French girl in the film Under the Cherry Moon.
Kristin Scott Thomas was given an OBE in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours list, and was also awarded the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 2005. She has also played in many TV movies, and as an actress in the theatre.
She is married but separated from French gynaecologist Dr François Olivennes, and has three children: Hannah (1988), Joseph (1991), and George (2000). She continues to live in Paris in a 19th century country house with her two youngest children.
Living in Paris, she counts Charlotte Rampling, Gérard Depardieu, Jane Birkin and Juliette Binoche among her social circle.
