Age, Biography, and Wiki
Kate Beckinsale, born on July 26, 1973, is the daughter of actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe. Her early life was marked by a close connection to the acting world, which influenced her decision to pursue a career in the same field. She gained recognition early in her career with roles in films like "Much Ado About Nothing" and later became a household name with the "Underworld" franchise.
| Occupation | Stage Actress |
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| Date of Birth | 26 July 1973 |
| Age | 52 Years |
| Birth Place | London, England |
| Horoscope | Leo |
| Country | England |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Kate Beckinsale is known for her stunning physique and has been a subject of interest for her fitness routine. She stands at a height of approximately 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm) and maintains a fit and active lifestyle.
Beckinsale rose to fame in 2001 with a leading role in the war film Pearl Harbor, as a nurse torn between two pilots, played by Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett. She was drawn to the project by the script: "It's so unusual these days to read a script that has those old-fashioned values to it. Not morals, but movie values. It's a big, sweeping epic....You just never get the chance to do that." Director Michael Bay initially had doubts about casting the actress: "I wasn't sure about her at first...she wore black leather trousers in her screen test and I thought she was a little nasty...it was easy to think of this woman as a slut." He eventually decided to hire her because she wasn't "too beautiful. Women feel disturbed when they see someone's too pretty." He asked her to lose weight during filming.
| Height | 5 feet 7 inches |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Kate Beckinsale has been in several high-profile relationships, including her partnership with actor Michael Sheen, with whom she has a daughter, Lily. She has been linked to several other celebrities over the years but currently keeps her personal life somewhat private.
Her half-sister from her father's earlier marriage is actress Samantha Beckinsale. Her father was partly of Burmese descent. Her parents did not marry until 1977, prior to Beckinsale starting nursery school, when she made her first television appearance at age four, in an episode of This Is Your Life, dedicated to her father. When she was five, her father died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 31. She was deeply traumatised by the loss and "started expecting bad things to happen."
Her widowed mother moved in with director Roy Battersby when Beckinsale was nine and she was brought up alongside his four sons and daughter. She had a close relationship with her stepfather, who was a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party during her youth. She helped to sell The News Line, a Trotskyist newspaper, as a little girl and has said the household phone was tapped following Battersby's blacklisting by the BBC. Family friends included Ken Loach and Vanessa Redgrave.
Beckinsale decided at a young age she wanted to be an actress: "I grew up immersed in film. My family were in the business. I quickly realised that my parents seemed to have much more fun in their work than any of my friends' parents." She was inspired by the performances of Jeanne Moreau. She made her television debut in 1991 with a small part in an ITV adaptation of P. D. James' Devices and Desires. In 1992, she starred alongside Christopher Eccleston in "Rachel's Dream," a 30‑minute Channel 4 short. In 1993, she appeared in the pilot of the ITV detective series, Anna Lee, starring Imogen Stubbs.
Also in 1995, she appeared in Haunted, a ghost story in which Derek Elley of Variety felt she "holds the screen, with both physical looks and verbal poise." 1995 saw Beckinsale's first professional stage appearance, as Nina in The Seagull at Theatre Royal, Bath. She became romantically involved with costar Michael Sheen after meeting during play rehearsals. She later said: "I was all revved up to feel very intimidated. It was my first-ever play and my mother had cut out reviews of him in previous productions. And then he walked in ... It was almost like, 'God, well, I'm finished now. That's it, then.'... He's the most outrageously talented person I've ever met." Irving Wardle of The Independent felt that "the casting, including Michael Sheen's volcanic Kostya and Kate Beckinsale's steadily freezing Nina, is mainly spot-on." In early 1996, she starred in two further plays, Sweetheart at the Royal Court Theatre and Clocks and Whistles at the Bush Theatre.
At this point in her career, Beckinsale began to seek work in the United States, something she has said wasn't "a conscious decision... My boyfriend was in a play on Broadway so that's why we ended up in New York, and my auditions happened to be for American films." She starred opposite Chloë Sevigny in 1998's The Last Days of Disco. The Whit Stillman film focused on a group of mostly Ivy League and Hampshire College graduates socialising in the Manhattan disco scene of the early 1980s. Beckinsale's American accent was widely praised. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times felt her role as the bossy Charlotte was "beautifully played." Todd McCarthy of Variety was unimpressed by the film but noted that "compensations include Beckinsale, looking incredible in a succession of black dresses, whose character can get on your nerves even if the actress doesn't." Her performance earned her a London Critics' Circle Film Award. The film grossed $3 million worldwide.
In 2002, Beckinsale starred in Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon, as a strait-laced academic who finds herself increasingly attracted to her free-spirited future mother-in-law. The independent film was another opportunity for Beckinsale to work with Christian Bale, her Prince of Jutland co‑star. She found their sex scene awkward because she knew Bale well: "If it was a stranger, it would have been easier." While Frances McDormand's performance as Bale's mother was widely praised, Beckinsale received negative reviews. Holden found the film "superbly acted, with the exception of Ms. Beckinsale, whose tense, colourless Alex conveys no inner life." Critic Lisa Schwarzbaum was unimpressed by the "tedious" characters and criticised "the fussy performances of Bale and Beckinsale" in particular. The film grossed over $4 million worldwide.
In 2004, Beckinsale starred in the action horror film Van Helsing. She was "so surprised" to be appearing in her second action film in two years. "It just seemed like a very good role." Beckinsale had just separated from her long-term boyfriend Michael Sheen at the time of filming and appreciated the warm atmosphere created on set by director Stephen Sommers and co‑star Hugh Jackman: "I really did find that working with people like Stephen and Hugh made it possible to get through what I was going through." The film grossed over $120 million at the US box office and over $300 million worldwide, but it was not well-reviewed. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described her as "a pretty actress doing her best to maintain dignity, vainly trying to craft a feminist statement from a filmmaker's whimsy." Rex Reed of The New York Observer felt she was "desperately in need of a new agent."
In 2006, Beckinsale reprised her role as Selene in the successful vampire sequel Underworld: Evolution, directed by her husband, Len Wiseman. It was the first time she had "been involved with a movie from the moment it's a germ of an idea right through the whole editing process." Her daughter had a small role as the younger Selene. The film was a box office success, grossing $111 million worldwide. Beckinsale's second film appearance of 2006 was opposite Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken in Click, a comedy about an overworked family man who discovers a magical remote control that allows him to control time. The opportunity to play a mother "was one of the things that was attractive to me" about the part. It was highly profitable, grossing $237 million worldwide against a production budget of $82.5 million.
In 2007, Beckinsale starred opposite Sam Rockwell in the independent drama Snow Angels, based on the novel by Stewart O'Nan. The harrowing film, in which she played an overwhelmed single mother, put Beckinsale "in kind of a tough place." "I did have my kid, my husband and, in fact, my ex was around a lot, so it was very nice to come home to my people whom I love." Puig felt "Beckinsale gives her best performance in years." Richard Corliss of Time described it as "her sharpest work yet." However, Scott felt that "her skill and discipline cannot overcome the sense that she is an exotic species transplanted into this grim ecosystem. Hard as she works to convince us otherwise, it's a stretch to believe that a woman with the kind of poised confidence in her own beauty she manifests would wind up with an underachieving mouth breather like Glenn." The film grossed solely $414,404 worldwide.
In 2008, Beckinsale appeared in Winged Creatures, a film about how six different witnesses cope with the aftermath of a shooting. Beckinsale played a waitressing single mother in an ensemble cast which included Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, and Forest Whitaker. "It was a really, really nice experience but it was quick," said Beckinsale of the filming process. "I just felt a bit like I was shot through a cannon." Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times felt she played the role "with a white trash verve" and found her character's "raw ache for that someone with money and respectability is palpable." However, Dargis felt that Beckinsale and her cast mates have a "tough time filling out characters that are at best abstractions of grief and often just clichés." The film received a very limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles; it was released simultaneously on DVD.
Beckinsale returned to acting in 2012 with appearances in three action films. Beckinsale first appeared in the action thriller Contraband. She had a supporting role as the wife of Mark Wahlberg's character, a former criminal who gets forced back into a life of crime after his family members are threatened. The film was directed by Baltasar Kormákur, who also starred in the Icelandic language version of the film, Reykjavík-Rotterdam. The San Francisco Chronicle felt Beckinsale was "stuck in a bit of a thankless role as the victimised wife, but she does try to infuse a harder edge to the character." The Hollywood Reporter stated that "Beckinsale, her innate classiness calibrated down a few notches, has little to do but be supportive, worried and, eventually, besieged." Entertainment Weekly felt that the "woman-in-peril stuff is second-rate, giving off a whiff of exploitation" while Variety found the repeated violence towards Beckinsale's character disturbing. The film had a production budget of $25 million and grossed over $96 million worldwide.
Also in 2012, Beckinsale appeared as the wife of a factory worker in the sci-fi action remake Total Recall, directed by her husband Len Wiseman. She has said Wiseman joined the project because he was unable to receive studio financing for an original sci-fi idea: "You're constantly finding yourself having to defend doing a remake when you didn't really want to make one in the first place." The film received mainly negative reviews. Variety found her performance "one-note" while The Hollywood Reporter described her as "one-dimensional." USA Today remarked that she "spends much of the movie strutting down hallways and looking relentlessly, though blandly, nasty." The film grossed $198 million against a production budget of over $125 million. In 2012, she appeared alongside Judy Greer and Andrea Savage in the Funny or Die video "Republicans, Get in My Vagina," a satire of the Republican Party's policies concerning abortion and prenatal care.
Beckinsale starred in the ITV/Amazon Prime drama The Widow (2019), her first TV series for more than 20 years. The series stars Beckinsale as an Englishwoman who believes her husband, killed in a plane crash three years prior, is still alive in the Congo. Beckinsale starred in the American action comedy film Jolt alongside Bobby Cannavale, Laverne Cox, Stanley Tucci and Jai Courtney. Jolt was adapted from a screenplay by Scott Wascha and directed by Tanya Wexler and released by Amazon Studios on 23 July 2021. That same year she starred in the Paramount+ dark comedy streaming television Guilty Party. In that series, she served as executive producer as well.
Beckinsale was in a relationship with Welsh actor Michael Sheen from 1995 to 2003. They met when cast in a touring production of The Seagull in early 1995 and moved in together shortly afterwards. In 1997, they voiced an audiobook production of Romeo and Juliet. In 2001, Beckinsale said she was "embarrassed" that Sheen never proposed, but felt as though she was married. They broke up in early 2003, after the filming of Underworld. Beckinsale and Sheen remain close friends. She remarked in 2016, "He's really dear, close family. He's somebody I've known since I was 21 years old. I really love him a lot."
Beckinsale met American director Len Wiseman while working together on 2003's Underworld. She persuaded Wiseman to cast Sheen in the film, but while on set, Beckinsale and Wiseman fell in love. Wiseman's then-wife Dana, a kindergarten teacher, accused her husband of infidelity with Beckinsale. Beckinsale and Wiseman married on 9 May 2004 in Bel-Air, California. They separated in November 2015. Wiseman filed for divorce in 2016, citing "irreconcilable differences." Their divorce was finalised in November 2019. Beckinsale briefly dated American comedian Matt Rife in 2017 and 2018.
In July 2003, the Press Complaints Commission dismissed a complaint filed by Beckinsale. She alleged that the tabloid Daily Mail had invaded her and her daughter's privacy by publishing photographs of the actress embracing and kissing her then-boyfriend Len Wiseman. The article in question was headlined, "Mummy's latest love scene leaves Lily unimpressed" and included a picture in which her then-four-year-old daughter appeared to be ignoring her mother's romantic actions. The Commission found that "the photographs had been taken in a public place and did not reveal any private details about Lily—such as her health or schooling—but were restricted to general observations about her apparent reaction to her surroundings."
The British Heart Foundation has been Beckinsale's charity of choice "ever since [she] was six years old" when her father, who had coronary artery disease, died of a massive heart attack. She has also donated film memorabilia to the Epidermolysis Bullosa Medical Research Foundation, MediCinema, Habitat For Humanity and the Entertainment Industry Foundation. In 2008, she hosted the 4th Annual Pink Party to raise funds for the Women's Cancer Research Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and organised a screening of All About Eve for FilmAid International. In 2012, Beckinsale joined Nestlé's Share the Joy of Reading Program to raise awareness about the importance of people's literacy.
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| Husband | Len Wiseman (m. 2004-2019) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2024, Kate Beckinsale's net worth is estimated to be $25 million, primarily due to her successful acting career and strategic endorsement deals. The estimates vary slightly, with some sources suggesting a net worth of $16 million.
Career, Business, and Investments
Kate Beckinsale's career spans over three decades, with notable roles in films like "Pearl Harbor," "The Aviator," "Click," and the "Underworld" series. She has also ventured into television projects, such as "The Widow" and "Prisoner's Daughter." Her business ventures include various endorsement deals that contribute to her net worth.
2000's The Golden Bowl marked Beckinsale's first role following the birth of her daughter. The Merchant/Ivory production was based on the novel by Henry James and also starred Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam. Beckinsale's partner, Michael Sheen, hit Northam on the film set after he followed Beckinsale to her trailer to scold her for forgetting a line. Holden noted "the most satisfying of the four-lead performances belong to the British cast members, Ms. Beckinsale and Mr. Northam, who are better than their American counterparts at layers of emotional concealment," adding each beat of Beckinsale's performance "registers precisely." Thomas felt her performance would take her to "a new career level." Andrew Sarris of The New York Observer asserted that she "comes close to capturing the sublimity of Maggie, despite the obvious fact that no movie can capture the elegant copiousness of James' prose." The film grossed over $5 million worldwide.
In the 2016 romantic comedy Love & Friendship, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Beckinsale reunited with her Last Days of Disco collaborators Stillman and Sevigny. Based on Jane Austen's Lady Susan, the film revolved around her role as the title character, a wry and calculating widow, as she pursues a wealthy and hapless man for marriage originally intended for her daughter, though she eventually marries him herself. The film was universally acclaimed by critics and found commercial success in arthouse cinemas. Justin Chang of Variety described the role as "one of the most satisfying screen roles of her career [...] Beckinsale magnetizes the screen in a way that naturally underscores how far ahead of everyone else she is: an effect that doesn't always work to the movie's advantage." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter remarked, "There aren't great depths to the role, but Beckinsale excels with the long speeches and in defining her character as a very self-aware egoist."
Social Network
Kate Beckinsale is quite active on social media platforms, where she engages with her fans and shares updates about her life and projects. Her presence on these platforms is well-managed and often includes glimpses into her fashion sense and personal interests.
Beckinsale was educated at Godolphin and Latymer School, an independent school for girls in Hammersmith, West London, and was involved with the Orange Tree Youth Theatre. She was twice a winner of the WH Smith Young Writers Award for both fiction and poetry. She has described herself as a "late bloomer": "All of my friends were kissing boys and drinking cider way before me. I found it really depressing that we weren't making camp fires and everyone was doing stuff like that." She had a nervous breakdown and developed anorexia aged 15, and underwent Freudian psychoanalysis for four years.
Beckinsale studied Russian at school and read French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford, and was later described by her contemporary Victoria Coren Mitchell, as "whip-clever, slightly nuts, and very charming." She became friends with Roy Kinnear's daughter Kirsty. She was involved with the Oxford University Dramatic Society, most notably being directed by fellow student Tom Hooper in a production of A View from the Bridge at the Oxford Playhouse. As a Modern Languages student, she was required to spend her third year abroad, and studied in Paris. She then quit university to focus on her burgeoning acting career: "It was getting to the point where I wasn't enjoying either thing enough because both were very high pressure." Beckinsale has stated she would like to complete her studies at Oxford University.
Beckinsale next starred in an ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, playing Emma to Mark Strong's Mr Knightley and Samantha Morton's Harriet Smith. "You shouldn't necessarily like Emma," Beckinsale has said of her character. "You do love her, but in the way the family of a young girl could be exasperated by her outrageous behaviour and still love her." The programme was aired in autumn 1996, just months after Gwyneth Paltrow had starred in a film adaptation of the same story. Caryn James of The New York Times felt that while "Ms. Beckinsale's Emma is plainer looking than Ms. Paltrow's," she is "altogether more believable and funnier." Jonathan Brown of The Independent has described Beckinsale's interpretation as "the most enduring modern performance" as Emma.
In 1999, Beckinsale appeared opposite Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace, a drama about two young Americans forced to deal with the Thai justice system on a post-graduation trip abroad. A then 26-year-old Beckinsale played a young girl. Danes had hoped to become friends with Beckinsale during the shoot but found her "complicated" and "prickly." McCarthy said the leads "confirm their status as two of the young actresses on the scene today most worth watching," finding Beckinsale "very effective at getting across layered character traits and emotions." "Danes and Beckinsale are exceptionally talented young actresses," said Thomas, but "unfortunately, the script's seriously underdeveloped context defeats their considerable efforts at every turn." Stephen Holden of The New York Times felt that Beckinsale's character "never comes into focus." The film was a box office failure.
In a 2004 interview, the actress noted that his comments were "upsetting" and said she wore leather trousers because "it was snowing out. It wasn't exactly like I had my nipple rings in." She felt grateful that she had not had to deal with such criticism at a younger age: "If I had come on to a movie set at [a younger] age and someone had said, 'You're a bit funny-looking, can you go on a diet?' – I might have jumped off a building. I just didn't have the confidence to put that into perspective at the time." However, speaking in 2011, she said she was "very fond" of Bay.
Pearl Harbor received negative reviews. Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly praised "the avid eyed, ruby lipped Kate Beckinsale, the rare actress whose intelligence gives her a sensual bloom; she's like Parker Posey without irony." A. O. Scott of The New York Times noted that "Mr. Affleck and Ms. Beckinsale do what they can with their lines, and glow with the satiny shine of real movie stars." However, Mike Clark of USA Today felt that the "usually appealing Kate Beckinsale" is "inexplicably submerged – like her hospital colleagues – under heaps of tarty makeup that even actresses of the era didn't wear." The film was a commercial success, grossing $449 million worldwide.
Beckinsale then made a return to smaller-scale projects: "My experience is that I sort of stepped away from the independent movies and did a couple of big movies. But that's not necessarily how it's perceived by everybody else, which I do understand." "I enjoy an action movie as much as the next person [but] it's not something that I would like to do solely." She explained that she had originally decided to appear in Underworld because she felt typecast in classical roles – it was "assumed that I use a chamber pot and wear bloomers" – but that her action career "kind of took off a little too much."
Also in 2008, Beckinsale starred in Nothing but the Truth, as a journalist who refuses to reveal her source. The film, co‑starring Vera Farmiga and Matt Dillon, was inspired by the case of Judith Miller. As part of her research for the role, "I spent some time at The L.A. Times with some female reporters, and I spoke to Judith Miller about her experience....I really researched the hell out of that one and it was an amazingly fulfilling, brilliant experience." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post asserted that Beckinsale and Farmiga played "two of the most fascinating female movie characters to hit screens in a long while, and they've been brought to life by two gifted actresses, each working at the top of her game." Beckinsale received a Critic's Choice Award nomination for her performance. The film never received a full theatrical release after the distributor filed for bankruptcy and the film grossed solely $186,702 worldwide. "I have prayed – prayed – for film companies to go bankrupt on films I've made, and then this happens on the one I love," said Beckinsale. "Usually it's the ones you're most embarrassed about that are on the side of every bus."
Also in 2009, Beckinsale starred in the family drama Everybody's Fine alongside Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, and Rockwell, her Snow Angels costar. Beckinsale was excited by the opportunity to work with De Niro, whom she had first encountered "years and years ago when I just had Lily and he was putting together a reading of The Good Shepherd.." Everybody's Fine was a box office flop, failing to recoup its production budget. In May 2010, Beckinsale sat on the nine-member 2010 Cannes Film Festival jury, chaired by director Tim Burton. Unable to find a script she felt passionate about, Beckinsale kept a low profile in 2010 and 2011, opting to spend time with her daughter.
In 2013, Beckinsale starred in the legal thriller The Trials of Cate McCall opposite Nick Nolte and James Cromwell. The film received negative reviews and was released as a Lifetime movie. She next appeared in the little-seen psychological thriller Stonehearst Asylum, loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether." A lukewarm critical reception greeted the film upon its DVD release; Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times said Beckinsale was "emoting as if an Oscar nomination depended on it" while Dennis Harvey of Variety found her performance "overwrought." In 2014, she provided the voice for Queen Ayrenn, a character in The Elder Scrolls Online video game.
Education
Kate Beckinsale attended the New College, Oxford, where she studied French and Russian literature. Her academic background reflects her interest in languages and culture, which has been an asset in her acting career.
In 1993, she made her theatrical film debut with a role in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation Much Ado About Nothing whilst studying at the University of Oxford. She played leading roles in numerous British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996), and The Golden Bowl (2000). She also starred in Pearl Harbor (2001), Serendipity (2001), The Aviator (2004), and Click (2006).
In 1993, Beckinsale landed the role of Hero in Kenneth Branagh's big-screen adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. It was filmed in Tuscany, Italy, during a summer holiday from Oxford University. She attended the film's Cannes Film Festival premiere and remembered it as an overwhelming experience. "Nobody even told me I could bring a friend!" "I had Doc Martens boots on, and I think I put the flower from the breakfast tray in my hair." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was won over by her "lovely" performance. Vincent Canby of The New York Times noted that she and Robert Sean Leonard "look right and behave with a certain naive sincerity, although they often seem numb with surprise at hearing the complex locutions they speak." The film grossed over $22 million at the box office.
She made three other films while at university. In 1994, she appeared as Christian Bale's love interest in Prince of Jutland, a film based on the Danish legend which inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet, and starred in the murder mystery Uncovered. In 1995, while studying in Paris, she filmed the French language Marie-Louise ou la permission.
Shortly after leaving Oxford University in 1995, Beckinsale starred in Cold Comfort Farm, as Flora Poste, a newly orphaned 1930s socialite sent to live with distant family members in rural England. The John Schlesinger-directed film was an adaptation of Stella Gibbons's novel and also featured Joanna Lumley, Eileen Atkins, Ian McKellen, Rufus Sewell and Stephen Fry. Beckinsale was initially considered too young, but was cast after she wrote a pleading letter to the director. Emanuel Levy of Variety was reminded of "the strength of a young Glenda Jackson and the charm of a young Julie Christie." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times classed the actress as "yet another of those effortlessly skilled British beauties who light up the screen." Janet Maslin of The New York Times felt she played the role "with the perfect snippy aplomb." The film grossed over $5 million at the US box office.
