Emily Kathleen Anne Mortimer is an English actress and screenwriter. She began acting in stage productions and has since appeared in several film and television roles. In 2003, she won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in Lovely and Amazing. She is also known for playing the role of Mackenzie McHale in the HBO series The Newsroom, and as the voice actress of Sophie in the English-language version of Howl's Moving Castle. Mortimer also stars in Scream 3, Match Point, Lars and the Real Girl, Chaos Theory, Harry Brown, Shutter Island, Hugo, and Mary Poppins Returns.
Early life and education
Mortimer was born in Hammersmith, London, England, to dramatist and barrister Sir John Mortimer, and his second wife, Penelope. She has a younger sister, Rosie; two older half-siblings, Sally Silverman and Jeremy, by her father's first marriage to author Penelope Fletcher; and a half-brother, Ross Bentley, by her father's relationship with actress Wendy Craig. Mortimer studied at St Paul's Girls' School in west London where she appeared in several pupil productions. She then went on to the University of Oxford, where she read Russian at Lincoln College and performed in several plays. Before becoming an actress, Mortimer wrote a column for the Daily Telegraph and was screenwriter for an adaptation of Lorna Sage's memoir, Bad Blood.
Career
Mortimer performed in several plays while studying at University of Oxford. While acting in a student production, she was spotted by a producer who later cast her in the lead in a television adaptation of Catherine Cookson's The Glass Virgin. Subsequent television roles included Sharpe's Sword and Coming Home . She followed this with the 1996 television film Lord of Misrule, directed by Guy Jenkin and filmed in Fowey, Cornwall. Also in 1996, Mortimer appeared in her first feature film opposite Val Kilmer in The Ghost and the Darkness, and in the coming-of-age story, The Last of the High Kings. In 1998 she appeared as Kat Ashley in Elizabeth, and played Miss Flynn in the television mini seriesCider with Rosie, which was adapted for television by her father. In 1999, she played three roles: she was the "Perfect Girl" dropped by Hugh Grant in Notting Hill; Esther in the television mini seriesNoah's Ark; and Angelina, the star of the film within a film in Scream 3. In 2000, Mortimer was cast as Katherine in Kenneth Branagh's musical adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost, where she met actor and future husband Alessandro Nivola. She took on her biggest role in an American film to date, playing opposite Bruce Willis in Disney's The Kid. In 2002, she had a major role in The 51st State, starring opposite Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle. In 2003, Mortimer appeared in Stephen Fry's film Bright Young Things. In 2004, Mortimer played the female lead in the film Dear Frankie. In 2005, she played a major role as the oblivious spouse of Jonathan Rhys Meyers's adulterer in Woody Allen's Match Point, as well as voiced young Sophie in the English-dubbed version of Howl's Moving Castle. In 2007 she played a supporting role in Lars and the Real Girl as the supportive sister-in-law of Ryan Gosling's title character. She appeared in The Pink Panther in 2006 and in its 2009 sequel. In the last three episodes of the first season of 30 Rock, she played Phoebe, the mysterious love interest of Alec Baldwin's character, Jack Donaghy. Mortimer played an aspiring actress opposite Andy García in City Island and as Rachel Solando in Martin Scorsese's2010 filmShutter Island. She played Leonie Gilmour in Leonie, released in the autumn of 2010. In 2011, she had a role in Our Idiot Brother as Liz, the sister of Paul Rudd's titular character. Also in 2011, she started work with the acclaimed screenwriter and producer Aaron Sorkin as Mackenzie McHale in HBO's The Newsroom. In January 2013 it was announced that Mortimer would be co-creating and starring in the comedy series Doll & Em for Sky Living, along with her longtime friend, actress and comedian Dolly Wells.
Personal life
In 2000, Mortimer met American actor Alessandro Nivola while both were starring in Love's Labour's Lost. The couple married in the village of Turville in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire, on 3 January 2003. Mortimer gave birth to their first child, Samuel John Nivola on 26 September 2003 and their second child, May Rose Nivola, in 2010. They live with their two children in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. Mortimer became an American citizen, for tax purposes, circa 2010.
