Natalie Dormer

Natalie Dormer
Biography

Birth date                February 11, 1982
Birth place              Reading, Berkshire, England, UK
Years active            2005 - Present
Height                     5'6" (1.68 m)

Life and Career
Natalie Dormer is an English actress. She is best known for her roles in Casanova as Victoria and as the ill-fated Tudor queen, Anne Boleyn in the Showtime series The Tudors.

Dormer attended Chiltern Edge Secondary School, before moving to Reading Blue Coat School, an independent boys' school that admits girls in the sixth form. She grew up with her stepfather, mother, sister Samantha and brother Mark. She suffered from bullying problems during her childhood, and it's something that "still to this day she can't place why."  At school, Natalie was head-girl, a straight-A student and vice-captain of the school netball team.She also got to travel the globe with her school's public speaking team.

During her school years she trained in dance at the Allenova School of Dancing. She describes herself as the 'academic hopeful' of the family and was offered a place to study history at Cambridge, but misread one of the questions that was in her history A-Level and thus was not able to get the A Grade she needed to attend. She decided she would audition for drama schools and decided to train at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She is also a member of the London Fencing Academy.

A self-proclaimed poker lover, Dormer took part in the 2008 PartyPoker.com Women's World Open in London, where she came in second to Emma Kennedy in the Celebrity Heat. Dormer has stated that Cate Blanchett has been an influence in her career as an actress.

 Film, Stage & Television Career
Six months after graduating from the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, Dormer auditioned and won the role of Victoria in Casanova with Heath Ledger and Sienna Miller. This was her film debut and it was released in 2005. The director, Lasse Hallstrom, was so impressed with Dormer's comedic timing that he had the script writer expand her part. On the strength of her audition for the role and her performance, she secured a three-film deal with Disney Touchstone which was never exercised.

In 2005, Dormer also had a bit part in Distant Shores playing that of a Mobile Woman. After the filiming of Casanova, Dormer was out of work for nine months and Dormer says that 'It was the best lesson I could have had in the first 12 months of my career.'  In 2006, Dormer guest-starred in an episode of Rebus entitled The Falls, playing the character Phillippa Balfour.

In 2007 and 2008 she played Anne Boleyn in the first two seasons of The Tudors, for which she received positive reviews. Dormer's relative was Jane Dormer, a lady in waiting to Mary I. Jane Dormer's memoirs contain some evidence on Boleyn's actual age, which is still a source of much academic dispute.

In 2008 she played Moira Nicholson in Miss Marple: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and appears in a number of forthcoming films: Fence Walker, Flying Lessons and City of Life. Dormer's Marple appearance aired in the US in the summer of 2009 as part of PBS' Masterpiece Mystery anthology series.

In March 2010 she made her stage debut at the Young Vic theatre in London as Mizi in the play Sweet Nothings. After six months of playing Mizi, Dormer went on to film some new roles including Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in Madonna's film W.E., Private Lorraine in Captain America: The First Avenger and Niamh Cranitch in the BBC court drama, Silk, before going onto her next stage role of Pat in .45 at Hampstead Theatre in the November of 2010.

She returned as Anne Boleyn in a dream sequence to the Tudors for the fourth and final season in mid 2010, this was confirmed when the first promotional picture of the season showed Anne (along with King Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr) on the cover.
Dormer earned in June 2010 the lead role for the movie adaption of the Peter Straub novel Shadowland.

Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
2005 Casanova Victoria
Distant Shores Mobile Woman
2006 Rebus Phillippa Balfour 1 episode, "The Falls"
2007–2008, 2010 The Tudors Anne Boleyn seasons 1-2; 4 (Dream sequence)- 21 episodes
2008 Flawless Cassie
Miss Marple: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? Moira Nicholson 1 episode, "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?"
2009 Fencewalker Unknown
City of Life Olga Emirati film
Masterwork Mo Murphy TV movie
2011 W.E. Queen Elizabeth
Captain America: The First Avenger Private Lorraine

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