Julia McNamara

Background:

British actress Joely Richardson, the daughter of screen legend Vanessa Redgrave and late director Tony Richardson, is widely recognized while playing Julia McNamara (2003-2006), Dr. Sean McNamera's (played by Dylan Walsh) frustrated wife on FX's popular nighttime drama “Nip/Tuck.” Since her first appearance on the big screen at age three as an extra in her father-directed war drama The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968; starring her mother), Richardson has starred in such films as The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), Drowning by Numbers (1988), King Ralph (1991), Shining Through (1992), Sister My Sister (1994), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Event Horizon (1997), Maybe Baby (2000), The Patriot (2000) and The Affair of the Necklace (2001). She will star in the upcoming films The Last Mimzy, The Last Chapter, and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.

The 5' 9" tall, radiant and blithe blonde, the ex-wife of film producer Tim Bevan, was one of Heat Magazine's (UK) “Top 100 Beautiful Women” (2004). She was romantically linked to Archibald Stirling and British TV presenter Jamie Theakston (June 2000 - August 2001). She is now reportedly dating “Nip/Tuck” co-star John Hensley who plays Richardson's character's son Matt.


Stars Root

Childhood and Family:

Daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson, Joely Kim Richardson was born on January 9, 1965 in London, England. She is the granddaughter of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, niece of actors Corin and Lynn Redgrave, and sister of actress Natasha Richardson. She is also half sister of writer-director Carlo Gabriel Nero (born on September 16, 1969) from her mother relationship with Italian actor Franco Nero.

Joely attended St Paul's Girl's School, London, England and Pinellas Park High School, Largo, FL. She also went to Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, England.

In January 1992, Joely married New Zealand-born film producer Tim Bevan (born in 1958), co-chairman of the hugely successful Working Title, the production company behind Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill and Captain Corelli's Mandolin among others. They have one daughter together, Daisy (born in 1992). Joely and Bevan divorced on July 12, 2001.


Sister My Sister

Career:

“You grow up by making mistakes. I've made a ton of them, but as long as I keep on failing better, I don't mind.” Joely Richardson.

Born into a theatrical family, Joely Richardson first appeared on the big screen at age three as an extra in her father-directed war drama The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), starring her mother. While still in drama school she appeared as a waitress in her father's The Hotel New Hampshire (1984), adapted from John Irving's 1981 coming of age novel with the same name. The next year, she got her first feature speaking role in writer-director David Hare's mystery drama Wetherby, portraying the younger version of her mother's character.

After joining Royal Shakespeare Company in 1986, Richardson landed her first starring role in a feature in writer-director Peter Greenaway's riddle-ridden classic Drowning By Numbers (1988), playing the youngest of the three Cissie Colpitts, one of the wives who murders her husband by drowning. She subsequently portrayed the Finnish Princess Anna who is set to marry the title role in David S. Ward's comedy King Ralph (1991; with John Goodman, Peter O'Toole and John Hurt), vaguely based on that of the novel Headlong by Emlyn Williams, and supported Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith in David Seltzer's take on Susan Isaacs' novel, Shining Through (1992). She also co-starred in writer-director James L. Brooks' drama comedy starring Nick Nolte and Albert Brooks, I'll Do Anything (1994), and won critical acclaim for her superb performance as one of the two sisters and maids who brutally murdered their employer (played by Julie Walters) and her daughter (played by Sophie Thursfield) in Nancy Meckler's all-woman production set in provincial France in the early 1930's, Sister My Sister (1994), a powerful compelling psychodrama based on a true incident called the Papin murder case.

1996 saw Richardson supported Glenn Close and Jeff Daniels in Stephen Herek's live-action film 101 Dalmatians. In the remake of the 1961 animated film One Hundred and One Dalmatians (which in turn was based on Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians), Richardson played Anita, a fashion designer and the mistress of a beautiful female Dalmatian named Perdy. She then was cast as executive officer Lt. Starck in Paul W.S. Anderson's bloated, lackluster sci-fi drama Event Horizon (1997; with Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill) and as a widow who is pregnant by a garage owner whom she doesn't love in writer-director Laurie Weltz's drama comedy set in the 1950s, Wrestling with Alligators (1998). She was also seen as a rich lady who is dying of cancer in Meg Richman's adaptation of Henry James' novel "The Wings of the Dove", Under Heaven (Richardson received an Independent Spirit nomination as best supporting female for the film), as the leader of some weird, post-modern hippies in writer-director Stephen Poliakoff's The Tribe, and starred opposite Clive Owen in the TV movie version of Minette Walters' novel, The Echo.

In the new millennium, Richardson co-starred with Mel Gibson and Heath Ledger in Roland Emmerich's blockbuster war drama set during the American Revolutionary War, The Patriot (she played Gibson's sister-in-law), and starred with Hugh Laurie as a couple who are trying to conceive a child in Ben Elton's romantic comedy Maybe Baby. She also played David Duchovny's doomed wife who suffers from complications of a car accident in Bonnie Hunt’s underrated romantic comedy Return to Me.

On stage, she made her NYC stage debut opposite Macauley Culkin in Richard Nelson's “Madame Melville” in 2001. And after portraying the queen Marie Antoinette in Charles Shyer's romantic drama film The Affair of the Necklace (2001; starring Hilary Swank), Richardson acted opposite mother Vanessa Redgrave in British staging of Oscar Wilde's "Lady Windermere's Fan."

“You get a little bit jaded even on this show, in that you think 'I don't know if I can be surprised anymore. All the characters are just so extreme, going through extreme situations and emotions every episode.” Joely Richardson (about “Nip/Tuck”).

In 2003, Richardson became a TV series star when she was cast as Julia, Dylan Walsh's Sean McNamara's troubled wife of 17 years on FX's popular plastic-surgery soap created by Ryan Murphy, "Nip/Tuck." The juicy role earned her two Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a Drama in 2004 and 2005. In November 2006, it was announced that Richardson would be leaving the show to take care of her ill daughter. However, recent reports mentioned that she will returned in its fifth season.

“I’ve worked hard for many years and Nip/Tuck was a great job. But I just couldn’t carry on with it for the sake of my conscience - or for my desires as a mother. I thought long and hard, but in the end, giving it all up was a no-brainer. How can you sleep at night, how can you feel anything in your heart about the people you love if you are unable to make this sort of decision?” Joely Richardson (on leaving "Nip/Tuck").

During her "Nip/Tuck" stint, Richardson also starred in the films Shoreditch (2003) and The Fever (2004; with mother Vanessa Redgrave), half-brother Carlo Gabriel Nero's adaptation of Wallace Shawn's play. She also appeared in the TV movies Fallen Angel (2003), Lies My Mother Told Me (2005), Wallis & Edward (2005) and Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America (2006).

Richardson just completed Robert Shaye's adventure drama movie The Last Mimzy. She is also set to star in Rod On Jr.'s drama/thriller The Last Chapter and Bill Clark's family movie inspired by Susan Wojciechowski's book, The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.

Awards:

- Character and Morality in Entertainment: Camie, Fallen Angel, 2005
- Valladolid International Film Festival: Best Actress, Sister My Sister, 1994