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Rise to Fame
The 'corset queen' label stuck for a decade. Period dramas, English roses, Lady Jane, A Room with a View. Then The Wings of the Dove (1997) got her an Oscar nomination playing a scheming social climber, which was a different register entirely. Fight Club (1999) put her in front of a global audience as someone who could do genuinely unhinged. Tim Burton cast her in Planet of the Apes in 2001 and kept casting her in almost everything he made for the next decade. The eccentric-actress persona didn't arrive preformed. Burton's films built it.
In the Spotlight
She plays royalty on a loop. The King's Speech (2010) earned her a BAFTA win and an Oscar nomination as Queen Elizabeth. Princess Margaret in The Crown ran across multiple seasons. Bellatrix Lestrange in the last four Harry Potter films gave her a fanbase that turns up in costume to conventions. She's confirmed for White Lotus Season 4. The industry still treats her as both a serious actor and a commercial draw, which is harder to pull off than she makes it look.
Side Notes
She's the great-granddaughter of Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith, and her paternal grandmother Lady Violet reportedly appeared on a Nazi arrest list. She and Tim Burton spent 13 years together in Belsize Park in adjoining houses, never sharing the same one. Two kids, no wedding. When they separated in 2014, both said it was amicable. Since 2018, she's been with art historian Rye Dag Holmboe. He's 21 years her junior.