New Zealand actress Kerry Fox can claim to have led one of the industry's more steadfastly international careers. Born in New Zealand, based in London, a resident of Sydney, and an actress in films that take her to all corners of the globe, Fox has led a life as varied as the films in which she appears.
Born in Wellington on July 30, 1966, Fox had her screen breakthrough as the star of Jane Campion's An Angel at My Table (1990). Her portrayal of New Zealand writer Janet Frame earned great acclaim, essentially jump-starting Fox's career. She next gave a strong performance in Gillian Armstrong's The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992), a family drama that cast her as the emotionally needy younger sister of a woman struggling with the disintegration of her marriage. Two years later, Fox earned cult credibility as one of the stars, along with Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston, of Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave. A moody, stylish black comedy about three Edinburgh flatmates attempting to deal with a dead flatmate and his suitcase full of money, the film was an unanticipated international success.
Fox subsequently did steady work in a number of international productions, including Canadian Thom Fitzgerald's acclaimed The Hanging Garden (1997), Michael Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo (1997), To Walk with Lions (1999), which was shot entirely in Kenya, and Fanny and Elvis (1999), a British comedy that cast Fox as a 30-something woman desperate to conceive a child.
