Montclair Film · CC BY 2.0

Broke through playing Evelyn Carnahan in The Mummy (1999) before turning toward the harder roles that define her career: an activist uncovering pharmaceutical-industry corruption in The Constant Gardener (2005), which won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and Blanche DuBois in a 2009 West End revival of A Streetcar Named Desire, for which she won an Olivier Award. She has moved fluidly between blockbusters like The Mummy Returns and small, difficult films like Denial and The Favourite, rarely settling into one register for long.