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Natalie Dormer portrays Jamie Moriarty on Elementary.

Early life and career[]

Natalie was born in Reading, Berkshire, and attended Chiltern Edge Secondary School, before moving to Reading Blue Coat School, an independent boys' school that admits girls in the sixth form. She grew up with her stepfather, mother, sister Samantha, and brother Mark. She says that she was the victim of bullying while at school and it is something that "still to this day she can't place why". At school, Natalie was head-girl, a straight-A student, vice-captain of the school netball team, and she also got to travel the globe with her skkol's public speaking team.

During her school years, she trained in dance at the Allenova School of Dancing. She describes herself as the "academic hopeful" of the family, and was offered a place to study history at Cambridge, but, in her A Level History exam, did not achieve the A Grade she needed to attend. She decided she would audition for drama schools, and decided to train at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

Six months after graduating from the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, Dormer auditioned and won the role of Victoria in Casanova with Heath Ledger and Sienna Miller. This was her film debut and it was released in 2005. The director, Lasse Hallström, was so impressed with Dormer's comedic timing that he had the script writer expand her part. On the strength of her audition for the role and her performance, she secured a three-film deal with Disney Touchstone which was never exercised.

In 2005, Dormer also had a bit part in Distant Shores playing that of a Mobile Woman. After the filming of Casanova, Dormer was out of work for nine months and has said that "It was the best lesson I could have had in the first 12 months of my career". In 2006, Dormer guest-starred in an episode of Rebus entitled "The Falls", playing the character Phillippa Balfour.

In 2007 and 2008, she played Anne Boleyn in the first two seasons of The Tudors, for which she received positive reviews. Robert Abele of LA Weekly wrote, "Natalie Dormer presents a painterly exquisiteness and complexity in her portrayal of Anne Boleyn...[her] enigmatic, time-halting loveliness is a boon for The Tudors, and damn near worth losing your head over." After her character's death at the end of the second season, The Boston Herald noted that "Dormer's departure from 'The Tudors' leaves a void." Dormer is related to Jane Dormer, a lady-in-waiting to Mary I. Jane Dormer's memoirs contain some evidence on Boleyn's actual age, which is still a source of much academic dispute.

In 2008, she played Moira Nicholson in Miss Marple: Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and appears in a number of forthcoming films: Fence Walker, Flying Lessons and City of Life.

In March 2010, she made her stage debut at the Young Vic theatre in London as Mizi in the play Sweet Nothings. In The Observer, theatre critic Susannah Clapp praised the performances of the cast and wrote, "Natalie Dormer is lissome as a dirty, delightful gadabout, pushing aside an entire chess game in order to put down her hat." After six months of playing Mizi, Dormer went on to film some new roles, including the Duchess of York in Madonna's film W.E., Pvt. Lorraine in Captain America: The First Avenger and Niamh Cranitch in the BBC court drama Silk, before going on to her next stage role of Pat in .45 at Hampstead Theatre in November 2010.

She returned to The Tudors as Anne Boleyn in a dream sequence for the fourth and final season in mid-2010. This was confirmed when the first promotional picture of the season showed Anne (along with King Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr) on the cover.

In June 2010, Dormer was cast in the lead role for the movie adaptation of the Peter Straub novel Shadowland.

In June 2011, Dormer joined the cast of the HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones as Margaery Tyrell of the noble House Tyrell.

In March 2012, Dormer returned to the Young Vic to play the title role in After Miss Julie by Patrick Marber. Her performance received critical acclaim, with reviews describing her as "little short of sensational", "outstanding", and "the perfect Miss Julie". The online theatre magazine Exeunt wrote that her portrayal of Miss Julie contained "all the anger, desire, wit, loneliness, merriment, melancholy and desperation of the casts of several plays together...Dormer has still more presence and eerie beauty than is apparent from her appearances on-screen, and she shape-shifts almost supernaturally between seductress, child and tormentor."

In March 2013, Dormer played the Lady Door in the radio dramatisation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, with two other actors who have played Sherlock Holmes: Sir Christopher Lee, and Jonny Lee Miller's former castmate Benedict Cumberbatch.

On 9 April 2013 it was announced Dormer would star in three episodes in the CBS TV series Elementary as Irene Adler.

Gallery[]

External links[]

Wikipedia
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