- Born
- Birth nameMelanie Thandiwe Newton
- Height5′ 3″ (1.60 m)
- Thandiwe Newton was born in London. She is the daughter of Zimbabwean mother Nyasha, a health-care worker from the Shona tribe, and British father Nick Newton, who worked as a lab technician. She lived in Zambia until political unrest caused her family to move back to the UK, where she lived in Cornwall (in southwest Britain) until she was 11 and enrolled in London's Art Educational School to study modern dance until a back injury forced her to quit dancing. This led to her auditioning for films. Her first role was in John Duigan's Flirting (1991). She then moved to Los Angeles, California to pursue acting. When her British accent limited the amount of work she was getting, she returned to Britain, studied at Cambridge University, and earned a degree in anthropology. Between semesters she continued acting and became noticed in in- demand for future film roles.- IMDb mini biography by: John Sacksteder <jsack@ka.net>
- SpouseOl Parker(July 11, 1998 - present) (3 children)
- ChildrenBooker Jombe Parker
- Parents
- RelativesJamie Newton(Sibling)
- She named her daughter Ripley after the character played by Sigourney Weaver in Alien (1979).
- Her mother is a Princess of the Shona Tribe.
- She has a Zimbabwean mother and a British father.
- A delayed shoot for Mission: Impossible II (2000) caused her to turn down one of the lead roles in Charlie's Angels (2000). Lucy Liu was cast instead.
- Raised in Penzance, Cornwall, England.
- It was hysterical. We wanted to make it naughty and fun. When the camera stopped rolling, it was hard to stop laughing. - about her love scene with Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II (2000).
- I use the film industry as a pleasure for work and that kind of thing and it's not a pursuit to make me feel happy in my life.
- Having children is life-changing, to state the obvious. It's a gigantic shift in your life and I welcomed it. Not to put too fine a point on it, there's something about the shame that goes with sexual exploitation, deviance, whatever. As a woman, having a baby psychologically erases it all from your body. And that, for me, was incredibly important.
- I don't put the pressure on myself to be a very successful movie star. I want to enjoy being an actor and I want to be challenged by the roles I take. What is lovely is that I'll get sent a small movie, and you know that by virtue of me being involved they get their money and that's fantastic.
- God, yeah, I'm good at playing the emotionally strangled person. The woman who is in the worst place in her life. That's me!
- Westworld (2016) - $250,000 /episode (Season 3)
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