Jennifer Ehle

Early life and education

Ehle was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. Her ancestry includes Romanian (from a maternal great-grandmother) and, paternally, German and English.

Ehle appeared as a toddler in a 1973 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, in which her mother played Blanche DuBois. She spent her childhood in the UK and the US, attending several schools, including Interlochen Arts Academy. She was mainly raised in Asheville, North Carolina. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

Career

1990s

Ehle made her professional debut as Calypso in The Camomile Lawn (released in 1992), a television adaptation of Mary Wesley's book of the same name, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages. The director, Peter Hall, then cast her as Elmire in his 1991 production of Tartuffe, for which she won second prize at the Ian Charleson Awards.

One of Ehle's first notable roles was as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice co-starring Colin Firth, for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. The same year, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, and gained her first major feature film role in Paradise Road (1997). She also appeared in supporting roles in Brian Gilbert's Wilde (1997) and István Szabó's Sunshine (1999).

2000s

In 2000, Ehle made her Broadway debut as Annie in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. That following year, Ehle appeared again on Broadway in the revival of Noël Coward's Design for Living co-starring with Dominic West and Alan Cumming.

After a hiatus, Ehle returned to the London stage in 2005 in The Philadelphia Story at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year, she played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Liev Schreiber, as part of the Shakespeare in the Park.

Ehle returned to Broadway portraying three characters in Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia triptych, which ran from October 2006 until May 2007. Ehle starred alongside Billy Crudup, Martha Plimpton, and Ethan Hawke. Theatre critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised her performance as "memorable". For her performance ,she received her second Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.

In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in the pilot of HBO's Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy book series. Ehle filmed the pilot episode, but decided it was too soon to return to work after the birth of her daughter and she did not return to the production when HBO commissioned a full season. Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley replaced her.

2010s

In 2010, Ehle starred alongside John Lithgow in the production of Mr. & Mrs. Fitch presented by Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Since 2010, Ehle has appeared in the films The King's Speech (where she reunited with her Pride and Prejudice co-star Colin Firth), Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (2011), George Clooney's The Ides of March (2011), Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos (2015), Terence Davies's A Quiet Passion (2016), and Ira Sachs's Little Men (2016). She also appeared in the television series A Gifted Man (2011–2012).

In 2017, Ehle appeared on stage in Oslo, which won the Tony Award for Best Play. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for her work. In 2018, she appeared in the Hulu limited series The Looming Tower as Ambassador Barbara Bodine. The series also starred Jeff Daniels, Bill Camp, Peter Sarsgaard, and Michael Stuhlbarg.

2020s

In 2020, Ehle reunited with Jeff Daniels in the limited series The Comey Rule which premiered on Showtime. Daniels and Ehle portrayed former FBI Director James Comey and his wife Patrice, respectively. In 2022 she also appeared in a variety of television projects including the Apple TV+ series Suspicion as Amy, the Showtime legal drama The Good Fight as Judge Ashley Burnett, and the Paramount+ western series 1923 as Sister Mary.

Also in 2022, Ehle received positive reviews for her supporting role in the MeToo investigative drama She Said, portraying Laura Madden. TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek described her as "superb" and Justin Chang writing for NPR declared her performance "quietly heartbreaking". She also returned to the stage as Gertrude in the Park Avenue Armory production of Hamlet in New York. Ehle received positive reviews as a last minute replacement for Lia Williams.

Ehle starred as Rebecca Parker in the 2023 thriller miniseries Dead Ringers. The series won a Peabody Award "for aptly packaging a bold adaptation of this twinned-body horror classic within the continued nightmarish world of women’s reproductive health care in the United States."

In 2024, Ehle appeared in four episodes of Law & Order: Organized Crime as Meredith Bonner, the Police Chief of Westbrook, Pennsylvania, who assists Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni) with the search for a serial killer.

Personal life

Ehle was married to writer Michael Ryan from 2001to 2025. They have two children.

Acting credits

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards and nominations

Tony Awards

BAFTA Awards

Screen Actors Guild Award

Laurence Olivier Award

Outer Critics Circle Award

Other award wins:

• 1991: Ian Charleson Award, Second Prize – as Orgon's wife in Tartuffe with the Peter Hall Company
• 1992: Radio Times Award Best Newcomer – The Camomile Lawn (TV)
• 2000: Variety Club Award – The Real Thing (play)

Other award nominations:

• 2000: Genie Award nomination – Sunshine

References

References

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2. (1970). "Performing Arts". google.ca.
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6. [http://www.nmia.com/~paulos/rosemary.html Rosemary Harris and the Picture: Madonna of the Slaughtered Jews]. Nmia.com. Retrieved on February 8, 2013. {{webarchive. link. (July 6, 2012)
7. "Jennifer Ehle". TVGuide.com.
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10. Dave Kehr. (June 16, 2000). "AT THE MOVIES; A Resemblance? It's Only Natural". [[The New York Times]].
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12. (April 23, 2005). "What Lizzie did next". [[The Age]].
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16. (February 19, 2007). "Those Storm-Tossed Revolutionaries Reach Port".
17. (October 14, 2010). "Fairley to replace Ehle in HBO's 'Thrones{{'-}}". [[The Hollywood Reporter]].
18. Jace Lacob. (September 22, 2011). "A Gifted Man's Leading Lady". [[The Daily Beast]].
19. [http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Tony_Winners_Lithgow_and_Ehle_Are_MR_MRS_FITCH_For_Second_Stage_Theatre_20090819 "Tony Winners Lithgow and Ehle Are 'MR. & MRS. FITCH' For Second Stage Theatre"] {{Webarchive. link. (February 8, 2021 August 19, 2009, Broadway World)
20. "Oslo, Starring Tony Winners Jefferson Mays and Jennifer Ehle, Begins Broadway Run".
21. (November 18, 2022). "She Said Is a Satisfying Journalism Movie About Tireless Reporters Who Are Also Tired Moms".
22. (November 18, 2022). "'She Said' follows the journalists who set the #MeToo movement in motion".
23. (July 7, 2022). "'Hamlet' Review: 21st-Century Danish Modern Shakespeare".
24. (15 January 2014 }}{{dead link). "Jennifer Ehle – Biography". Yahoo! Movies.
25. "Case 2024-51771 Ryan, Jennifer E. V. Ryan, Michael Scott - Trellis: Legal Intelligence + Judicial Analytics".
26. Moore, Suzanne. (20 December 2011). "Celebrities' Christmas memories". The Guardian.
27. "Jennifer Ehle {{!}} Theatricalia".
28. Lees, Caroline. "Classic recipes for success". ''[[Sunday Times]]''. 9 February 1992