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Award-winning actress Brenda Blethyn is renowned for her exceptional work in film, theatre and television. She is a two-time Academy Award nominee, receiving her first nomination in 1997 for Best Actress in Mike Leigh's SECRETS AND LIES, and her second in 1999 for Best Supporting Actress in Mark Herman's LITTLE VOICE. Blethyn's performance in SECRETS AND LIES won her Best Actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes, the British Academy Awards, the L.A. Film Critics Association, the Boston Society of Film Critics, as well as the British Actress of the Year Award from the London Film Critics Circle. For her performance in LITTLE VOICE, she was named Best Supporting Actress for 1999 by the Dallas Fort Worth Critics Association, and received similar nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy Awards and the Golden Globes. In 2001, she received her third Golden Globe nomination, for Best Actress in Nigel Cole's SAVING GRACE.

Blethyn will next be seen in the holiday movie BLIZZARD, directed by LeVar Burton and scheduled for release in November 2004. She will be seen in several films scheduled for 2005 release, including Joe Wright's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Amma Asante's A WAY OF LIFE, John McKay's PICCADILLY JIM, Gaby Dellal's ON A CLEAR DAY, and the animated feature POOH'S HEFFALUMP MOVIE, directed by Frank Nissen.

Recent film credits include Nick Hurran's PLOTS WITH A VIEW, Nicole Holofcener's LOVELY AND AMAZING, Nicolas Cage's SONNY and Anthony Abrams and Adam Broder's PUMPKIN. Other credits include Billy Bob Thornton's DADDY AND THEM; and Guy Jenkins' SLEEPING DICTIONARY; Nick Hurran's GIRL'S NIGHT and REMEMBER ME; John Lynch's NIGHT TRAIN; James Bogle's IN THE WINTER DARK; Charlie Peters' MUSIC FROM ANOTHER ROOM; Robert Redford's A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT; and Nicolas Roeg's WITCHES.

Among her many notable television credits are the films ANNE FRANK: THE WHOLE STORY (for which she received an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actress); the award-winning HBO production RKO 281; POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL: THE BARBARA HUTTON STORY; Jonathan Miller's adaptation of Shakespeare's KING LEAR; and Mike Leigh's GROWN-UPS for BBC2. She co-starred in the mini-series The Buddha of Suburbia, directed by Roger Michell and adapted by Hanif Kureishi from his novel, and has starred in several British television series, including Outside Edge, which brought her the British Comedy Awards' Best TV Comedy Actress prize for 1994.

Blethyn began her career on the stage in her native England, and was quickly recognized as a major talent. In 1975, she became a member of the Royal National Theatre Company and later joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1981, she received the prestigious Critics Circle Theatre Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Steaming. She has worked with such esteemed directors as Peter Hall, Sam Mendes and Peter Wood, acting in a wide range of classic and modern plays, including Mrs. Warren's Profession, Habeas Corpus, Wildest Dreams, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Tamburlaine the Great, adapted by Tom Stoppard. In 1991, she made her New York debut in the Broadway production of Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends, for which she received the 1991 Theatre World Award for Outstanding New Talent.