Family:
Father was a pilot in the Royal Navy. She is the eldest of 3 sisters and 2 brothers. Siblings include model-turned actress, Serena Scott Thomas, (Diana: Her Own True Story)

Growing Up and Education:
Her father was killed in a flying accident when she was 5. In 1973, her stepfather, another naval officer, was also killed in an identical accident. "I read resent articles that have described my childhood as tragic, it wasn't a bed of roses and it wasn't a hellhole. You just get on with it."

Educated in Cheltenham Ladies College in the early 70s and "buckled under and complained like mad".

At 16, she studied in a convent school, where she had aspirations to be " a saint, then a nun, then a swimmer".

Worked in Selfridges Ladies's Separates - introduction to the twinsets she would soon become indeliably associated with.

Entered the teaching course at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London--a bad experience when her bid to change to acting was rejected. She says she was told she couldn't act, became sad and fat , and soon dropped out.

Paris:
At 19, she took off to Paris as an au pair. Her employer encouraged her to audition for drama school. Studied at the Ecole Nationale des Arts et Technique de Theatre in Paris.

Met her future husband, obstetrician François Olivennes, at an evening theatre class. They live round the corner from the Jardins de Luxembourg with their three children, Hannah, Joseph and George.

Early Career:
It turned out to be a brilliant career move for her. Ferociously bilingual, Kristin was a lot more well known in France where she has avoided typecasting and has appeared in many and varied French productions on the stage and for film and television. In Britain she tended to be stereotyped as an English Rose in twinsets. Her frumpy school teacher in Eric Rochant's Autobus leaves scant trace of upperclass uppercrust Lady Brenda.

Her first break (of sorts) was in 1986 when Prince picked her as the female lead in his Under the Cherry Moon. "His highness was at the audition. Working on the film was fun - party all the time. There were all these limousines and handlers and managers, all kinds of glitzy stuff, but it wasn't my thing, and I was terribly disappointed in myself for not being able to get into it. What was I supposed to do? Sit there like a potted plant?"

Kristin truly came into the limelight with her startling performance as the amoral Lady Brenda in A Handful of Dust, a faithful adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel For this role, she won the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 1988.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Dislikes (tongue in cheek of course):
Kristin Scott Thomas hates being interviewed, especially when it is at her home in Paris.
She hates spiders, "Spiders really freak me out."
She hates life masks, "A pretty horrible experience."
She hates body masks, "The most humiliating, horrible, desperate, ghastly experience... It's hell."
She doesn't like actors much.
She hates being an actress.
She loathes feelings.

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