Jennifer Anne Ehle (; born December 29, 1969) is an actress who has starred in and won numerous awards for her prolific work in stage, film, and television productions. Her accolades include two Tony Awards, a BAFTA Award for Best Actress (TV), and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Cast in a Motion Picture. She is widely known for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice.
Ehle began her career acting on stage in the United Kingdom, with the Edinburgh Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the National Theatre. She earned a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. She reunited with Stoppard acting in his play The Coast of Utopia (2007), earning a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She appeared on Broadway in the J.T. Rogers play Oslo, earning a second Tony nomination for Best Actress.
Ehle is also known for her film performances, including The King's Speech (2010), Contagion (2011), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), A Little Chaos (2014), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Little Men (2016), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), Saint Maud (2019) and She Said (2022). She has also appeared in various television programs, including NBC's The Blacklist (2014–2015), the Hulu limited series The Looming Tower (2016), the Showtime miniseries The Comey Rule (2020), and the CBS legal drama The Good Fight (2022). She received the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice (1995). She starred in the 2023 Amazon Prime miniseries Dead Ringers.
Early life and education
Jennifer Anne Ehle was born on December 29, 1969 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to English actress Rosemary Harris and American author John Ehle. Her ancestry includes Romanian (from a maternal great-grandmother) and, paternally, German and English.<!--Self-published geneology pages are not WP:RELIABLE sources: --><!--No Romanian, German, English heritage content is covered here: --> Ehle appeared as a toddler in a 1973 Broadway revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, in which her mother played Blanche DuBois.
Ehle spent her childhood in the UK and the US, attending several schools, including Interlochen Arts Academy. She was mainly raised in Asheville, North Carolina. Her drama training was split between the North Carolina School of the Arts,<!--The following citation does not support the statement, "Her drama training was split...", but rather is primary source material (a NCSA alumni page only mentioning Ehle).--> and the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
Career
1990s
Ehle made her professional debut as Calypso in The Camomile Lawn (released in 1992), a television adaptation of Mary Wesley's book of the same name, in which she and her mother played the same character at different ages. The director, Peter Hall, then cast her as Elmire in his 1991 production of Tartuffe, for which she won second prize at the Ian Charleson Awards. She also appeared in supporting roles in Brian Gilbert's Wilde (1997), and István Szabó's Sunshine (1999).
2000s
In 2000, Ehle made her Broadway debut as Annie in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play. That following year, Ehle appeared again on Broadway in the revival of Noël Coward's Design for Living co-starring with Dominic West and Alan Cumming.
After a hiatus, Ehle returned to the London stage in 2005 in The Philadelphia Story at the Old Vic opposite Kevin Spacey. The following year, she played Lady Macbeth in Macbeth with Liev Schreiber, as part of the Shakespeare in the Park. Theatre critic Ben Brantley of The New York Times praised her performance as "memorable". For her performance ,she received her second Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
In August 2009, it was announced that Ehle would play the character of Catelyn Stark in the pilot of HBO's Game of Thrones, an adaptation of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy book series. Ehle filmed the pilot episode, but decided it was too soon to return to work after the birth of her daughter and she did not return to the production when HBO commissioned a full season. Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley replaced her.
2010s
In 2010, Ehle starred alongside John Lithgow in the production of Mr. & Mrs. Fitch presented by Second Stage Theatre in New York City. Since 2010, Ehle has appeared in the films The King's Speech (where she reunited with her Pride and Prejudice co-star Colin Firth), Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (2011), George Clooney's The Ides of March (2011), Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Alan Rickman's A Little Chaos (2015), Terence Davies's A Quiet Passion (2016), and Ira Sachs's Little Men (2016). She also appeared in the television series A Gifted Man (2011–2012).
In 2017, Ehle appeared on stage in Oslo, which won the Tony Award for Best Play. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Play for her work. In 2018, she appeared in the Hulu limited series The Looming Tower as Ambassador Barbara Bodine. The series also starred Jeff Daniels, Bill Camp, Peter Sarsgaard, and Michael Stuhlbarg.
2020s
In 2020, Ehle reunited with Jeff Daniels in the limited series The Comey Rule which premiered on Showtime. Daniels and Ehle portrayed former FBI Director James Comey and his wife Patrice, respectively. In 2022 she also appeared in a variety of television projects including the Apple TV+ series Suspicion as Amy, the Showtime legal drama The Good Fight as Judge Ashley Burnett, and the Paramount+ western series 1923 as Sister Mary.
Also in 2022, Ehle received positive reviews for her supporting role in the MeToo investigative drama She Said, portraying Laura Madden. TIME film critic Stephanie Zacharek described her as "superb" and Justin Chang writing for NPR declared her performance "quietly heartbreaking". She also returned to the stage as Gertrude in the Park Avenue Armory production of Hamlet in New York. Ehle received positive reviews as a last minute replacement for Lia Williams.
Ehle starred as Rebecca Parker in the 2023 Amazon Prime thriller miniseries Dead Ringers. The series won a Peabody Award "for aptly packaging a bold adaptation of this twinned-body horror classic within the continued nightmarish world of women’s reproductive health care in the United States." to 2025.<!--WP:OR / legal expertise is required to use this source to surmise anything about the status of the case:--> As of 2011, they had two children.
Acting credits
Film
{| class="wikitable unsortable"
|-
! Year !! Title !! Role !! class="unsortable" | Notes<br>and Refs.
|-
| 1994 || Backbeat || Cynthia Powell ||
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1997 || Paradise Road || Rosemary Leighton-Jones ||
|-
| Wilde || Constance Lloyd Wilde ||
|-
| 1998 || Bedrooms and Hallways || Sally ||
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1999 || Sunshine || Valerie Sonnenschein ||
|-
| This Year's Love || Sophie ||
|-
| 2002 || Possession || Christabel LaMotte ||
|-
| 2005 || The River King || Betsy Chase ||
|-
| 2006 || Alpha Male || Alice Ferris ||
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2008 || Pride and Glory || Abby Tierney ||
|-
| Before the Rains || Laura Moores ||
|-
| 2009 || The Greatest || Joan ||
|-
| 2010 || ' || Myrtle Logue ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2011 || ' || Cindy Morris ||
|-
| Contagion || Ally Hextall ||
|-
| ' || Brooklyn Ice House Bartender ||
|-
| 2012 || Zero Dark Thirty || Jessica Karley ||
|-
| rowspan="4" | 2014 || RoboCop || Liz Kline ||
|-
| Black or White || Carol Anderson ||
|-
| The Forger ||Kim Cutter ||
|-
| A Little Chaos || Madame De Montespan ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2015 || Advantageous || Isa Cryer ||
|-
| Fifty Shades of Grey || Carla Wilks ||
|-
| Spooks: The Greater Good || Geraldine Maltby ||
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2016 || Little Men || Kathy Jardine ||
|-
| The Fundamentals of Caring || Elsa ||
|-
| A Quiet Passion || Vinnie Dickinson ||
|-
| rowspan="4" | 2017 || Fifty Shades Darker || Carla Wilks || Unrated edition only
|-
| I Kill Giants|| Mrs. Thorson ||
|-
| Detroit|| Morgue Doctor || Uncredited
|-
| Wetlands || Kate Sheehan ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2018 || The Miseducation of Cameron Post || Dr. Lydia Marsh ||
|-
| Monster || Maureen O'Brien ||
|-
| Fifty Shades Freed || Carla Wilks ||
|-
| Vox Lux || Josie the Publicist ||
|-
| Take Point || Agent Mackenzie ||
|-
| rowspan="5" | 2019 || The Wolf Hour || Margot ||
|-
| Run This Town || Judith ||
|-
| The Professor and the Madman || Ada Murray ||
|-
| Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies || Tina ||
|-
| Saint Maud || Amanda Kohl ||
|-
| 2021 || John and the Hole || Anna Shay ||
|-
| 2022 || She Said || Laura Madden ||
|-
|2023
|Barbie
|Elizabeth Bennet
|Archival footage
|-
| rowspan="3" | 2025 || East of Wall || Tracey ||
|-
| Our Hero, Balthazar || Nicole ||
|-
| In Transit || Ilse ||
|-
| TBA || Lone Wolf || || Post-production
|}
Television
{| class="wikitable unsortable"
|-
! Year !! Title !! Role !! class="unsortable" | Notes<br>and Refs.
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1992 || The Camomile Lawn || Calypso || Miniseries, 5 episodes
|-
| The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles ||Zita of Austria ||Episode: "Austria, March 1917"
|-
| rowspan="3" | 1993 || The Maitlands || Phyllis || BBC TV production
|-
| Self Catering || 'Meryl' || TV movie
|-
| Rik Mayall Presents: Micky Love || Tamsin || Miniseries, 6 episodes
|-
| 1995 || Pride and Prejudice || Elizabeth Bennet || Miniseries, 6 episodes
|-
| 1996 || Beyond Reason || Penny McAllister || TV movie
|-
| 1997 || Melissa || Melissa || Miniseries, 5 episodes
|-
| 2008 || ' || Lorraine Morrissey || TV movie
|-
| 2011–12 ||' || Anna Paul || 16 episodes
|-
| 2013 || Low Winter Sun || Susan || Episode: "Ann Arbor"
|-
| 2014–15 || The Blacklist || Madeline Pratt || 2 episodes
|-
| 2018 || The Looming Tower || Ambassador Barbara Bodine|| 3 episodes
|-
| 2020 || The Comey Rule || Patrice Comey || Miniseries
|-
| rowspan="2" | 2022 || Suspicion || Amy || Episode: "Be the Gray Man"
|-
| The Good Fight || Judge Ashley Burnett || Episode: "The End of Ginni"
|-
| 2022–23 || 1923 || Sister Mary || 4 episodes
|-
| 2023 || Dead Ringers || Rebecca Parker || 5 episodes
|-
| 2023–24 || Lioness || Mason || 7 episodes
|-
| 2024 || Law & Order: Organized Crime || Chief Meredith Bonner || 4 episodes
|-
| 2026 || The Vampire Lestat || Gabriella de Lioncourt || TBA
|-
| TBA || First Woman || Helen Sadler || Upcoming six-part drama
|}
Theatre
{| class="wikitable unsortable"
|-
! Year !! Title !! Role !! Venue
!Notes<br>and Refs.
|-
| rowspan="2" | 1989|| 1959 Pink Thunderbird || || rowspan=2|Edinburgh Festival
|
|-
| Laundry and Bourbon ||
|
- 1992: Radio Times Award Best Newcomer – The Camomile Lawn (TV).
- 2000: Variety Club Award – The Real Thing (play).
Other award nominations:
- 2000: Genie Award nomination – Sunshine.
See also
- List of American film actresses