Like fellow antipodean actress Judy Davis, Kerry Fox has developed a reputation for playing fiercely intelligent, independent-minded woman. Also like Davis, the attractive New Zealander guards her privacy eschewing interviews and preferring her work to speak for itself. After first becoming established Down Under Fox, though, headed for England where she has found challenging roles on stage and film.
After completing drama school in her native country, Fox first garnered attention for her remarkable portrayal of author Janet Frame in the biographical drama "An Angel at My Table" (1990), directed by Jane Campion. Cast against type, with frizzy red hair and playing down her natural attractiveness, the actress painted a portrait of an artist misdiagnosed with schizophrenia who overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds to gain literary fame. Fox went on to earn praise for her turn as the younger sibling of a writer (Lisa Harrow) unaware of the path of destruction that follows in her wake in the melodrama "The Last Days of Chez Nous" (1992). The chameleonic performer was excellent as a radicalized white South African in "Friends" (1993) and as one of the titular seven women delivered to the home of a messianic preacher in "Mr. Wroe's Virgins" (BBC, 1993), helmed by Danny Boyle. Boyle tapped Fox for her breakthrough role as a greedy medical student in the stylish "Shallow Grave" (1994). Fox continued to demonstrate her extraordinary range playing a seductive lesbian in the British TV production "A Village Affair" and as a sheep farmer in Michael Blakemore's "County Life" (both 1994), a version of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" set in the Australian Outback.
Moving back to the small screen, Fox enlivened the HBO melodrama "The Affair" (1995), portraying a bored English housewife enjoying an illicit romance with a black American soldier during WWII. In the superb, surreal Canadian-produced feature "The Hanging Garden" (1997), she was excellent as a bride-to-be eagerly awaiting the return of her gay brother. That same year, she was briefly, but effectively, seen as a foreign journalist covering the Balkan conflict in "Welcome to Sarajevo". Fox made her London stage debut in a 1997 production of Genet's "The Maids" and went on to earn strong notices for her work in "I Am Yours" (1998) and "Flame" (2000). She also remained active on the big screen, although critics were dismissive of the vehicles: Her suicidal woman befriended by a man who may be a vampire in "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" (1998) and her writer desiring a baby in "Fanny & Elvis" (1999) were little seen.
Fox came roaring back, though, with a blistering turn as an actress engaging in a sexual relationship with a relative stranger in "Intimacy" (2000). Adapted from Hanif Kureishi's stories and marking the English-language debut of director Patrice Chereau, "Intimacy" was screened to acclaim at the 2001 Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. Fox and co-star Mark Rylance were particularly praised for their work essaying difficult people who find common ground only through physical intercourse.