Vanessa Kirby has been in the game for years, but she really started turning heads in the last ten. She is known mostly for her stage work, having won acclaim and awards for various productions, including A Streetcar Named Desire. For her scene-stealing performance as Princess Margaret in Netflix’s The Crown, she rightfully won a BAFTA Award. Kirby also starred as Estella in the BBC adaptation of Great Expectations, and on the big screen, she certainly made her mark as the White Widow in the latest Mission: Impossible outing.
Speaking of blockbusters, Kirby quickly went on to score a leading role in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), and we can’t wait to see her reprise her juicy MI6 role in the upcoming Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One. In honor of the celebrated English actress (who can nail an American accent, by the way), here’s a closer look at Kirby’s finest on-screen efforts to date.
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5 Queen & Country (2014)
BBC Worldwide
Hope and Glory (1987) centered on a young boy growing up in London during World War II. The film’s sequel didn’t arrive until 2014 with Queen and Country, which follows the same boy, Billy, all grown up (now played by Callum Turner) as he gets drafted for the Korean War. Bill is joined by a trouble-making Army mate Percy (Caleb Landry Jones). They never get near South Korea, but rather engage in a constant battle of wits with the sergeant (David Thewlis). Percy eventually meets Billy’s older sister Dawn (Vanessa Kirby), who has abandoned her Canadian marriage and returned home with her two kids. Kirby’s charming chemistry with Jones on screen is terrific — it’s no wonder that these two stars are as big as they are today.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
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4 Mr. Jones (2019)
Boy Jones Films
Based on real events, the dramatic thriller Mr. Jones chronicles a British investigative journalist as he travels deep into the Soviet Union to uncover an international conspiracy. Gareth Jones was ambitious and gained fame after his report on being the first foreign journalist to fly with Hitler. On leaving a government role, Jones decides to travel to Moscow in an attempt to get an interview with Stalin himself. Hearing murmurs of government-induced famine, Jones travels clandestinely to Ukraine, where he witnesses the atrocities of man-made starvation. Vanessa Kirby co-stars as Ada Brooks — though underutilized, she is terrific and committed in the journalist-in-distress supporting role.
3 Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
Skydance Media
On a dangerous assignment to recover stolen plutonium, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) chooses to save his friends over the mission, allowing it to fall into the hands of a deadly network of highly skilled operatives intent on destroying civilization. Now, with the world at risk, Ethan and his IMF team (Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and Rebecca Ferguson) are forced to work with a hard-hitting CIA agent (Henry Cavill) as they race against time to stop the nuclear threat. Kirby steals every scene she’s in as the White Widow in Mission: Impossible - Fallout, and we can’t wait to see her in the next installment.
“I learned a lot about work ethic from him,” Kirby once told The Guardian about sharing scenes with Cruise. “I never thought that stunts and action would be my genre, but I’m understanding now that you can transcend genre, as long as you try and find the real woman behind the part.”
2 The Dresser (2015)
BBC
In the closing months of World War II, aging actor Sir (Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Her Ladyship (Emily Watson) bring Shakespeare to the provinces. Sir is falling ill, discharging himself from the hospital and Her Ladyship believes he should cancel his upcoming performance of King Lear. However, Norman (Ian McKellen), his outspoken dresser, disagrees and is determined that the show will go on. In The Dresser, Kirby plays a young actress named Irene, and her edgy scenes with Hopkins are reason enough to see this TV movie effort.
“I love Irene, because she reminds me of every actress I’ve ever known in the beginning of their career,” Kirby once told BBC regarding her character. “I imagine every actor has considered those things and stayed up all night worrying about what it is to be an actor, why do we do what we do, and what do we lose, what’s the cost of doing that and why?”
1 Pieces of a Woman (2020)
Bron Studios
Martha (Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf) are a Boston couple on the verge of parenthood whose lives change when a home birth ends in tragedy. Thus begins a yearlong odyssey for Martha, who must navigate her grief while working through relationships with her husband and her domineering mother (Ellen Burstyn), along with the publicly vilified midwife (Molly Parker). Pieces of a Woman is a deeply personal, searing and ultimately transcendent story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss. For her performance, Kirby received Academy Award, BAFTA, SAG, Critics’ Choice and Golden Globe nominations.
“I was looking for something demanding,” Kirby once told W Magazine. “I was being sent all the standard sorts of scripts, but Pieces of a Woman was so absorbing, so touching, that I was absolutely sure that I had to do it. Gena Rowlands is my hero, and her film A Woman Under the Influence is the kind of work that I’m aiming for. Rowlands is idiosyncratic—fierce, but still vulnerable.”
