Rebecca Ferguson

Early life and education

Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström was born on 19 October 1983 in Stockholm, and grew up in the city’s Vasastan district. Her mother, Rosemary Ferguson, is English, and moved from Britain to Sweden at age 25. Her mother helped ABBA translate the lyrics from their 1974 album Waterloo into English and also appeared on the sleeve of the band's 1975 self-titled album. Her father, Olov Sundström, is a Swedish businessman. Her parents never married and separated when she was 3 years old. Ferguson took her mother's surname as her stage name. Her maternal grandmother is Northern Irish, and her maternal grandfather is Scottish.

Ferguson attended an English-medium school in Sweden and was raised bilingual, speaking Swedish and English. She attended the Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm and graduated in 1999.

Ferguson was briefly signed to a modeling agency in her youth after her mother decided that she should be a model, but she disliked being photographed and turned down jobs. The modelling agency placed Ferguson in a portfolio titled "normal people" due to her not being tall nor slim enough for modelling. Her portfolio helped her get cast in her first acting job after it was found by a casting agency for a soap opera in Sweden. Ferguson then started her acting career aged 15. Unsure if she wanted to act, Ferguson took other casual work, including working at a nursery and at a daycare centre as a nanny, in retail stores, at a Korean restaurant, and as a cleaner in a hotel.

Ferguson has danced from a very early age; she danced ballet, tap-dancing, jazz, street funk, and tango. She taught Argentine tango at a dance company in Lund, Sweden for a few years while she continued her work on several short art film projects.

Career

Beginnings

Ferguson came to prominence as upper-class girl Anna Gripenhielm in the Swedish soap opera Nya tider (1999–2000). She went on to later play Chrissy Eriksson in the Swedish-American soap Ocean Ave. (2002). In 2004, she made her feature film debut in Mikael Håfström's horror film Drowning Ghost and later had a guest role in Wallander (2008). Swedish director Richard Hobert spotted her at the Simrishamn town market in 2011, which led to her starring in his film **, which earned her a nomination for the Rising Star award at the Stockholm International Film Festival. In 2013, she co-starred in the film ** alongside Gustaf Skarsgård.

International recognition

In August 2012, it was announced Ferguson had been cast to play Elizabeth Woodville in the ten-part BBC historical television drama The White Queen (2013), based on Philippa Gregory's The Cousins' War novels about the women of the Wars of the Roses. Ferguson's performance in The White Queen was met with critical praise, and earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film. Her first Hollywood role was against Dwayne Johnson in Hercules (2014).

Blockbuster films

In 2015, Ferguson gained wider recognition for her portrayal of MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, the female lead in the fifth Mission: Impossible film, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, for which she received critical acclaim. Tom Cruise handpicked Ferguson to star opposite him in the film after watching her in The White Queen and noticing a resemblance between Ferguson and Ingrid Bergman. She reprised her role in the sixth Mission: Impossible film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, released in 2018 – her biggest commercial success, grossing over $790 million worldwide – and reprised it again in the seventh film, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, in 2023.

In 2016, she played the dual roles of Katya and Lauren in the Cold War espionage thriller directed by Shamim Sarif, Despite the Falling Snow, opposite Sam Reid and Charles Dance. For her performance in the film, she won the Best Actress award at the 2016 Prague Independent Film Festival. Later that same year, Ferguson appeared in Stephen Frears's Florence Foster Jenkins opposite Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant, and Tate Taylor's thriller book adaptation The Girl on the Train starring Emily Blunt. In 2017, Ferguson played the female lead in Daniel Espinosa's sci-fi horror Life, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds, co-starred in Tomas Alfredson's crime thriller The Snowman, alongside Michael Fassbender and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and starred as Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind in the musical film The Greatest Showman, with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams.

In 2019, Ferguson had several major film roles. She co-starred in Doctor Sleep, the adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name; played the villain Morgana in Joe Cornish's adventure film The Kid Who Would Be King; and co-starred as Riza Stavros in F. Gary Gray's science fiction comedy film Men in Black: International. In 2021, she co-starred in Lisa Joy's science fiction thriller Reminiscence.

Denis Villeneuve cast her as Lady Jessica in his film adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune, playing the role in both Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024).

In 2023, Ferguson starred in and executive produced the Apple TV+ science fiction series Silo.

Personal life

In 2007, Ferguson gave birth to her first child, a son, with her then-boyfriend Ludwig Hallberg, a psychosynthesis therapist. After her soap opera success and the birth of their son, she moved with Hallberg to Simrishamn, on the Swedish southeast coast. In 2012, Ferguson and Hallberg taught tango together in Österlen. Ferguson and Hallberg separated in April 2015.

Since 2016, Ferguson has been in a relationship with businessman Rory St. Clair Gainer, with whom she has a daughter who was born in May 2018. They married in December 2018. They have a house in Richmond, southwest London, owing to its proximity to Pinewood and Shepperton studios. Ferguson splits her time between London and a fishing village in Sweden, where her son lives with his father, and she mantains a close relationship with both of them.

Ferguson has a preference for going barefoot, a habit that influenced her creative choices for the costume of Rose the Hat in Doctor Sleep.

Filmography

Film

Television

Podcast

Awards and nominations

References

References

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