A veteran British stage actress who was once Hollywood’s “It” girl in the early 1990s, Julia Ormond weathered the transition from silver screen ingénue to nuanced character actor with grace and style. Thrown into the spotlight with starring roles opposite Brad Pitt in “Legends of the Fall” (1994) and Harrison Ford in Sydney Pollack’s “Sabrina” (1995), the ethereal beauty quickly became a household name. Though her A-list status waned only a few years after her career break in “Legends,” Ormond’s sheer force of talent led to her securing more and more nuanced supporting roles. In 2008, she appeared in both the Steven Soderbergh epic “Che” opposite Benicio Del Toro, and the Academy Award-nominated “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” proving this foreign star still had staying power with American filmgoers.
Born Jan. 4, 1965 in Epsom, Surrey, England to Josephine Ormond, a lab technician, and John Ormond, a successful computer software designer, Ormond was raised in Surrey by her mother. She attended Guilford High School and Cranleigh School in Surrey, where she was active in field hockey and theater. Upon graduating, Ormond went on to study art briefly at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design before heading to London to study drama at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Upon receiving her diploma in 1988, she went on to appear in theatrical productions of “The Rehearsal,” “Wuthering Heights,” “The Crucible” and Christopher Hampton’s “Faith, Hope and Charity,” which won Ormond the London Drama Critics’ Award for Best Newcomer.
After a brief stint in commercials, Ormond went on to make her television debut in 1989 as a junkie Cambridge student and daughter of a British official involved in the war on drugs in the British miniseries “Traffik.” She next starred as Russia’s Catherine the Great in the miniseries “Young Catherine” (TNT, 1991) – a breakthrough role for the actress – and went on to appear in two little-seen international films: “The Baby of Macon” (1993), a tale of a 17th century Medici which co-starred Ralph Fiennes, and “Nostradamus” (1994), a biopic of the famed visionary played by Tcheky Karyo. Portraying Nadya Alliluyeva opposite Robert Duvall in the television biopic “Stalin” (HBO, 1992), Ormond’s classic beauty caught the eye of director Ed Zwick. She was soon cast as Susannah Fincannon Ludlow, the pivotal female lead in Zwick’s “Legends of the Fall” (1994). As a woman who comes between three brothers in World War I-era Montana, Ormond found herself on Hollywood’s A-list, sharing the screen with Brad Pitt, Aidan Quinn and Anthony Hopkins.
Proving she could hold her own as a leading lady on the big screen, Ormond was paired opposite Richard Gere and Sean Connery in the King Arthur flick, “First Knight’ (1995). Though it boasted an all-star cast, the film received mixed reviews and did not perform at the box office. Shedding her trademark long locks, she went on to star opposite Harrison Ford and Greg Kinnear in Sydney Pollack’s remake of the classic 1954 Billy Wilder romance, “Sabrina” (1995). Though the film received decent reviews, it lacked the charisma of the original, which starred iconic silver screen legends Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. Ormond suffered from the inescapable comparisons to a silver screen icon, but did her best to pour on the charm. Ormond next starred in the Bille August crime drama “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” (1997), and in Nikita Mikhalkov’s Russian epic “The Barber of Siberia” (1999). When “Siberia” failed to impress critics – it received more press for Mikhalkov’s political views – Ormond took a break from Hollywood. Throwing herself into nonprofit work, the actress founded FilmAid International and ASSET (Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking). Recognized for her humanitarian work, Ormond was appointed as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador in 2005.
Returning to the screen in 2004, Ormond co-starred with Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston in the acclaimed HBO film, “Iron Jawed Angels” about the American women’s suffrage movement during the early 1900s. She went on to turn in a small but effectively-eerie performance in David Lynch’s “Inland Empire” (2006) and appeared as Abigail Breslin’s mother in the favorably reviewed family film, “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” (2008). Landing a pair of supporting yet pivotal roles in 2008, Ormond portrayed American reporter Lisa Howard in Steven Soderbergh’s epic biopic “Che,” and the daughter of the reversibly aging Brad Pitt in David Fincher’s Oscar-nominated “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” In both roles, Ormond’s character provided the structure for the films narrative. In the former, it is the interview between Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) and Howard that helps frame the story; in the latter, Ormond’s character propels the story into motion by reading Benjamin Button’s diary.