Eve Best

Emily "Eve" Best (born 31 July 1971) is an English stage and screen actress and director,^[1] best known for her roles as Dr. O'Hara in the Showtime television series Nurse Jackie, as Wallis Simpson in the 2010 film The King's Speech, and First Lady Dolley Madison in a 2011 American Experience television special.

Best was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a play for her work in A Moon for the Misbegotten and received an Olivier Award for Best Actress for the title role in Hedda Gabler in 2005.

Early life and education

Best grew up in Ladbroke Grove, London, daughter of a design journalist and an actress.^[1] She attended Wycombe Abbey Girls’ School before going on to Lincoln College, Oxford where she read English. Among her earliest public performances were with the W11 Opera children's opera company in London at the age of nine. After graduating from Oxford where she had appeared in OUDS productions, and toured to the Edinburgh Festival, she made her professional debut as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the Southwark Playhouse.^[2]

Career

After a period working on the London fringe, Best trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.^[1] After graduating in 1999 she appeared in a revival of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Young Vic for which she won both the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle best newcomer awards;^[3] she adopted her grandmother's name as a stage name, as an Emily Best was already registered with British Actors' Equity Association.^[4]

Best won an Olivier Award for playing the title role in Hedda Gabler^[5] and was nominated for the same award the following year for her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's play A Moon For The Misbegotten at the Old Vic Theatre in London.^[6]

In early 2007, she starred in a Sheffield Crucible production of As You Like It^[7] which played for a short time at the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford^[8] as part of their Complete Works season. In the same year she performed in the Broadway transfer of A Moon For The Misbegotten^[9] for which she was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Play.^[10]

Best appeared in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Cort Theatre in New York,^[11] which co-starred Ian McShane, Raúl Esparza and Michael McKean. Daniel Sullivan directed the 20-week limited engagement, which ran until 13 April 2008. She once again appeared as Beatrice in a critically acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2011,^[12] playing opposite Charles Edwards as Benedick and starred in the Old Vic production of The Duchess of Malfi in 2012. She made her directorial debut with a production of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2013.^[13]

Television appearances include Prime Suspect: The Final Act (2006), Waking the Dead (2004), Shackleton (2002), and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2005).

She appears as Lucrece in the Naxos audiobook version of Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece. She also starred in a 2000 BBC Radio 4 production of Emma.

Best co-stars as Dr. Eleanor O'Hara in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, that premiered in June 2009.^[14][15] She played the Duchess of Windsor — Wallis Simpson — in The King's Speech, starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

Best also co-stars as Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, alongside William Hurt in The Challenger, a British made for TV dramatization of the Rogers Commission set up to investigate the Challenger accident of 1986.

In summer 2014 Best played Cleopatra, the leading role in the Shakespeare's Globe version of Antony and Cleopatra.^[16]

Filmography

Best, after performing in A Moon for the Misbegotten in NYC, 27 May 2007

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eve Best.

• Eve Best at the Internet Movie Database
• Eve Best at the Internet Broadway Database
• Interview with the Sunday Times
• W11 Opera