Felicity Jones

This article is about the actress. For the naturist, see Felicity Jones (naturist).

Felicity Jones
File:Felicity Jones DEC 2016.jpg Felicity Jones at TIFF 2011
Born	Felicity Rose Hadley Jones (1983-10-17) 17 October 1983 Birmingham, England
Alma mater	Wadham College, Oxford
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1996–present
Spouse(s)	Charles Guard (m. 2018)
Partner(s)	Ed Fornieles (2003–2013)
Children	1

Felicity Rose Hadley Jones (born 17 October 1983) is a British 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 series of the television series The Worst Witch and its sequel Weirdsister College. 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 the films Northanger Abbey (2007), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Chéri (2009), The Tempest (2010), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), and True Story (2015). Her performance in the 2011 film Like Crazy was met with critical acclaim, garnering her 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, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Actress. In 2016, Jones starred in the adventure-thriller Inferno, the fantasy drama A Monster Calls and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as Jyn Erso. In 2016, she received the BAFTA Britannia Award for British Artist of the Year.

Early life

Jones was born and raised in Bournville, an affluent suburb of Birmingham, the daughter of Julia née Hadley, and Gareth Jones. Her uncle is actor Michael Hadley. She has one sibling, a brother. Her father was a journalist while her mother was in advertising. Her parents divorced when she was three, and she was brought up by a single mother.

After Kings Norton Girls' School, Jones attended King Edward VI Handsworth School, to complete A-levels and went on to take a gap year (during which she appeared in the BBC series Servants). She then read English at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating with an upper second in 2006. While studying English, 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 OUDS summer tour to Japan, starring alongside Harry Lloyd.

Career

Felicity began acting at 11 years at an after-school workshop funded by Central Television. Jones appeared in the first series of The Worst Witch. When Weirdsister College began in 2001, Jones returned as Hallow. Her longest and probably best known role overall was on the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers, where she played Emma Carter (who is now played by Emerald O'Hanrahan).

Jones at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival

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-Holländer) 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. 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.

Her current highlight is her 2014 performance as Jane Hawking in the film The Theory of Everything, a biopic charting the life and love between Jane Wilde Hawking and the world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, with Eddie Redmayne starring as Hawking. The film has received critical acclaim mostly due to her and Redmayne's performances. For her role as Jane, she received widespread acclaim and nominations from numbers of organizations, including 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 in the Star Wars spin-off film, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story with Gareth Edwards directing.

Personal life

In 2013, she split from her boyfriend of ten years, Ed Fornieles, who is a sculptor and internet artist. She and Fornieles met at Oxford when he was at the Ruskin School of Art.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	The Treasure Seekers	Alice Bastable	Movie
1998–99	The Worst Witch	Ethel Hallow	11 episodes
2001	Weirdsister College	Ethel Hallow	13 episodes
2003	Servants	Grace May	6 episodes
2007	Northanger Abbey	Catherine Morland	Movie
2007	Cape Wrath	Zoe Brogan	8 episodes
2008	Doctor Who	Robina Redmond	Episode: "The Unicorn and the Wasp"
2009	The Diary of Anne Frank	Margot Frank	5 episodes
2011	Page Eight	Julianne Worricker	Movie
2014	Salting the Battlefield	Julianne Worricker	Movie
2014	Girls	Dot	Episode: "Role-Play"
2016	Galaxy World of Alisa	Angelina (voice)	British English voice

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2008	Flashbacks of a Fool	Young Ruth
2008	Brideshead Revisited	Lady Cordelia Flyte
2009	Chéri	Edmée
2010	Cemetery Junction	Julie Kendrick
2010	Soulboy	Mandy Hodgson
2011	The Tempest	Miranda
2011	Chalet Girl	Kim Matthews
2011	Like Crazy	Anna Maria Gardner
2011	Albatross	Beth Fischer
2011	Hysteria	Emily Dalrymple
2012	Cheerful Weather for the Wedding	Dolly Thatchem
2013	Breathe In	Sophie
2013	The Invisible Woman	Nelly Ternan
2014	The Amazing Spider-Man 2	Felicia Hardy
2014	The Theory of Everything	Jane Wilde Hawking
2015	True Story	Jill
2016	Collide	Juliette	In post-production
2016	A Monster Calls	Mum	In post-production
2016	Inferno	Sienna Brooks	In post-production
2016	Rogue One: A Star Wars Story		Filming

Theatre

• The Snow Queen, Creation Theatre Company (2005–06), Gerda
• That Face, Royal Court Theatre (2007), Mia
• The Chalk Garden, Donmar Warehouse (2008), Laurel
• Luise Miller, Donmar Warehouse (2011), Luise Miller

Awards and nominations

Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Felicity Jones

External links

• Felicity Jones at the Internet Movie Database
• Felicity Jones at AllMovie