Emma Thompson (Nanny McPhee / Screenplay by) was born in London. Her father was theatre director Eric Thompson, also the creator of the successful children’s television series The Magic Roundabout. Her mother is actress Phyllida Law. She read English at Cambridge, and whilst there, she appeared in many Footlights performances including Cambridge’s first all-women revue, Woman’s Hour, and The Cellar Tapes, which won the Perrier Pick of the Edinburgh Fringe and was later broadcast by the BBC.
After Cambridge, Thompson made appearances on television, and in 1985 she played opposite Robert Lindsay in the original cast of the musical Me and My Girl. That same year, her own TV special, Up For Grabs, aired on Channel 4. Following this, she played Suzy Kettles in the John Byrne BBC TV series Tutti Frutti and then played opposite Kenneth Branagh in The Fortunes of War. For these performances, she won her first BAFTA for Best Actress.

She went on to write and record her own series, Thompson, for the BBC.
She followed this with her first feature film, The Tall Guy, directed by Mel Smith, co-starring Jeff Goldblum and Rowan Atkinson for Working Title, and then returned to the BBC to film The Winslow Boy, directed by Michael Darlow.
In 1988, she filmed Henry V, directed by and co-starring Kenneth Branagh, and the next year filmed Impromptu directed by James Lapine.
Thompson then joined the Renaissance Theatre Company and toured the world playing Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Fool in King Lear.

In 1990, Thompson filmed Dead Again, directed by and co-starring Kenneth Branagh. Roles followed in Peter’s Friends and Much Ado About Nothing, both directed by Branagh. She played opposite Anthony Hopkins in the Merchant-Ivory film The Remains of the Day, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award® and a Golden Globe for Best Actress. She then filmed Jim Sheridan’s In the Name of the Father with Daniel Day-Lewis, for which she was also nominated for an Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actress. Thompson won the 1993 Academy Award® for Best Actress, as well as the Golden Globe Award; the New York, Los Angeles and National Film Critics Awards; and the BAFTA Award, all for her role in the Merchant-Ivory production of Howard’s End.

In 1994, she appeared in The Blue Boy, an independent feature shot on location in Scotland for America’s PBS, and Junior, a comedy co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito for director Ivan Reitman.
A year later she starred in the title role in Carrington, Christopher Hampton’s story of the strange love affair between artist Dora Carrington and Lytton Strachey. She also starred in and wrote the screenplay adaptation (based on Jane Austen’s novel) of Sense and Sensibility for director Ang Lee. For her writing accomplishments on that film, she received an Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as a Golden Globe Award, the USC Scripter Award and Best Screenplay awards from the Writers Guild, the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics, the Chicago Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics and the New York Film Critics. She also received a nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television. For her performance in Sense and Sensibility, she received her third BAFTA and National Board of Review awards for Best Actress, along with an Academy Award® nomination, a Golden Globe nomination and a Screen Actors Guild nomination.

Thompson followed that with starring roles in a succession of films including The Winter Guest, shot on location in Scotland and co-starring her mother, Phyllida Law, for director Alan Rickman; Primary Colors, with John Travolta, Billy Bob Thornton and Kathy Bates for director Mike Nichols; and the independent feature Judas Kiss with Alan Rickman, this time as co-star.
More recently, Thompson starred in the HBO telefilm Wit, for which she received Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and Emmy Award nominations, and (as the film’s co-screenwriter) the Humanitas Award; director Mike Nichols’ adaptation of Angels in America for HBO, co-starring Meryl Streep and Al Pacino, for which she received an Emmy Award nomination; and opposite Antonio Banderas, in writer/director Christopher Hampton’s film adaptation of Imagining Argentina.

Most recently, Thompson starred as Professor Trelawney in Alfonso Cuaron’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. She also starred in Richard Curtis’s directing debut Love, Actually, for which she received the BAFTA award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, the Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Actress, and the Empire Award for Best British Actress.
She has completed filming Stranger Than Fiction, co-starring Will Ferrell, Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Queen Latifah, to be released in 2006. Stranger than Fiction was directed by Marc Forster and produced by Lindsay Doran, marking Thompson’s fourth collaboration with producer Doran. This past fall, in honor of Nanny McPhee and past writing accomplishments, she received a special screenwriting award from Women in Film, U.K.

A classically trained British theatre actor, Colin Firth (Mr. Brown) is a veteran of numerous television and film roles. Most recently, Firth has starred in Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies and was last seen reprising his role as the dashing Mark Darcy in the hit British comedy Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
Prior to this he starred in the psychological thriller Trauma, opposite Mena Suvari, and Girl With a Pearl Earring, based on the best-selling novel by Tracy Chevalier, as the 17th century artist Johannes Vermeer opposite Scarlett Johansson and Tom Wilkinson. In October 2003, Firth appeared in the Working Title production Love, Actually, written and directed by Richard Curtis, together with an outstanding ensemble cast that included Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Keira Knightley. In 2002, Firth was seen starring opposite Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon in the Miramax film The Importance of Being Earnest. In 2001, Firth charmed audiences worldwide when he first starred as Mark Darcy opposite Renée Zellweger in the hit British comedy Bridget Jones’s Diary.

In 1998, Firth starred in Shakespeare in Love, where he portrayed Lord Wessex, the evil intended husband to Viola De Lesseps, played by Gwyneth Paltrow. In 1996, Firth appeared in the multi-Oscar® nominated film The English Patient, opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes. His other film credits include What a Girl Wants, Hope Springs, Relative Values, A Thousand Acres (with Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange), Apartment Zero, My Life So Far, The Secret Laughter of Women, Fever Pitch, Circle of Friends, Playmaker and the title role in Milos Forman’s Valmont.
On the small screen, Firth is infamous for his 1995 breakout role, when he played Mr. Darcy in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, for which he received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor and legions of female admirers. Firth’s most recent television appearance was as the host of NBC’s Saturday Night Live in March 2004. He was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2001 for Outstanding Supporting Actor in the critically acclaimed HBO film Conspiracy and has also received the Royal Television Society Best Actor Award and a BAFTA nomination for his work in Tumbledown. His other television credits include Windmills on the Clyde: Making “Donovan Quick,” Donovan Quick, The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd, The Deep Blue Sea, Hostages and the miniseries Nostromo. He made his London stage debut in the West End production of Another Country playing Bennett; he was then chosen to play the character Judd in the 1984 film adaptation opposite Rupert Everett.

Kelly MacDonald’s (Evangeline) career took off after her role as Ewan McGregor’s one-night stand in Trainspotting in 1996. She followed that with starring roles in numerous feature films, most poignantly as the teenage prostitute in Stella Does Tricks; as the feisty girl who charms a schizophrenic Daniel Craig in Some Voices; and more than held her own in the all-star cast of Robert Altman's British country-house thriller, Gosford Park, for which she received an Empire Award nomination for Best Actress and shared the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture.
Other feature film credits include Cousin Bette, My Life So Far, Elizabeth, The Loss of Sexual Innocence, Splendour, Entropy, House!, Two Family House, for which Macdonald was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead, Strictly Sinatra and Brush With Fate.
Most recently, she has starred in Richard Curtis’s The Girl in the Café broadcast on the BBC; Intermission; and Marc Forster’s highly acclaimed Finding Neverland as Peter Pan. She also starred in A Cock and Bull Story for Michael Winterbottom and All The Invisible Children for Mehdi Charef and Emir Kusturica. She also appears in Lassie, directed by Charles Sturridge.

THOMAS SANGSTER’s (Simon) television debut was in the BBC Film The Adventures of Station Jim, playing alongside Prunella Scales, George Cole and Frank Finley. The telefilm was a delightful story about a runaway orphan finding sanctuary on a steam railway. This was followed by a lead role in the Showtime Original film Bobbie's Girl, in which he was cast alongside Jonathan Silverman, Bernadette Peters and Rachel Ward.

Immediately after, he was whisked off to Vancouver to take the lead in The Miracle of the Cards, the telefilm version of the true story of Craig Shergold, who was diagnosed with cancer at age 10 and recovered with the help of an anonymous benefactor and enough get-well cards to enter him into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Thomas then appeared in the BBC’s Emmy and BAFTA award-winning adaptation of Clive King’s wonderful story, Stig of the Dump. It tells the tale of Barney and his friendship with a caveman named Stig. Thomas received glowing reviews as Barney, all wide-eyed wonder and innocent adventurer.
He next appeared in the action telefeature Daddy, which gave him the opportunity to work alongside Klaus Maria Brandauer. This was Sangster’s first thriller and he loved all the action scenes, explosions, shoot-outs and car chases. His performance won him the Best Actor in a Miniseries award at the 2003 Monte Carlo Film Festival.
Love, Actually was Sangster’s first international feature film, in which he played Liam Neeson’s son, and for which he received a Satellite Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a musical or comedy. His training for Love, Actually involved learning how to play the drums, perform cartwheels and (most challenging of all) have his first screen kiss.
Thomas has since filmed a new BBC TV series called Feather Boy.

Angela Lansbury (Aunt Adelaide) has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional career spans more than half a century, during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star and most recently as the star of Murder, She Wrote, the longest running detective drama series in the history of television.
Angela Brigid Lansbury was born in London on October 16, 1925. Her father, Edgar Isaac Lansbury, was a timber merchant. Her mother, Moyna Macgill, was a popular actress. At age 10, Lansbury saw John Gielgud as Hamlet at the Old Vic and vowed that someday she would become an actress. She attended the Webber-Douglas School of Dramatic Art in London.

In 1940, in order to escape the London Blitz, Moyna Macgill evacuated 14-year-old Lansbury and her younger twin brothers, Edgar and Bruce, to the United States. The family lived in Putnum County for a year, during which time Lansbury commuted to the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. She received her first professional job at age 16 when she performed a cabaret act in Montreal.
Eventually the family relocated in Los Angeles where 17-year-old Lansbury landed a seven-year contract at MGM after director George Cukor cast her as Nancy, the menacing maid, in Gaslight. Her cunning performance won her a 1944 Academy Award® nomination for Best Supporting Actress. The following year she received a second nomination, again for Best Supporting Actress, for her portrayal of the doomed Sybil Vane in The Picture of Dorian Gray. That poignant role earned her a Golden Globe Award.

Lansbury has appeared in 44 motion pictures to date. They include such classics as National Velvet, The Harvey Girls, Frank Capra’s State of the Union, Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah, The Court Jester, The Long Hot Summer, The Manchurian Candidate (for which she received a second Golden Globe Award, the National Board of Review Award and her third Academy Award® nomination), The World of Henry Orient and Death on the Nile (a second National Board of Review Award). In 1991, she was the voice of Mrs. Potts in the Disney animated feature Beauty and the Beast, and in 1997, she was the voice of the Grand Duchess Marie in the animated movie Anastasia.
The actress made her Broadway debut in 1957 when she starred as Bert Lahr’s wife in the French farce, Hotel Paradiso. In 1960 she returned to Broadway as Joan Plowright’s mother in the season's most acclaimed drama, A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney.

In 1964, she starred on Broadway in her first musical. Anyone Can Whistle closed after only nine performances, but Lansbury returned to New York in triumph in 1966 as Mame. She played the role for two years on Broadway and later to sold-out audiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Mame earned Lansbury the first of her unprecedented four Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical. She received the others as the Madwoman of Chaillot in Dear World (1968), as Mama Rose in the 1974 revival of Gypsy and as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd (1979). In 1978, she starred as Mrs. Anna for a limited engagement of The King and I.

Concurrent with her musical ventures, Lansbury continued to act in serious dramas. In 1971, she returned to London to appear in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Edward Albee’s All Over. In 1975, again in London, she played Gertrude to Albert Finney's Hamlet in the National Theatre production. In 1976, she acted in two Albee one-act plays, Counting the Ways and Listening, at the Hartford Stage Company.
She was to find her largest audience on television. Although Lansbury had acted in live dramas during “the golden age of television” in the 1950s in such shows as Robert Montgomery Presents and Lux Video Theatre, when she starred as Mrs. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in the 1982 miniseries Little Gloria...Happy at Last, she had not acted on television in 17 years. She followed that Emmy-nominated performance with roles in the miniseries Lace and A Christmas Story: The Gift of Love.
From 1984-1996 she starred as Jessica Fletcher, mystery-writing amateur sleuth, on Murder, She Wrote. In 1992, Lansbury added to her responsibilities by becoming the series’ executive producer.

During the past decade she has also found time to star in the made for television motion pictures, Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris, Shootdown, The Love She Sought and the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation The Shell Seekers. She developed a video and co-wrote a book, both titled Positive Moves, about fitness and well-being.
After Murder, She Wrote concluded its 12-season run in May 1996, Lansbury returned to her theatrical roots by starring in Mrs. Santa Claus, the first original musical for television in four decades.
In 1997, Lansbury appeared in South by Southwest, the first of a series of two-hour Murder, She Wrote movies for CBS. In 1998, she completed The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, which also aired on CBS. In spring of 2000, Lansbury completed the second of the Murder, She Wrote movies, A Story to Die For. In 2002, the third Murder, She Wrote movie, The Celtic Riddle, was aired.
She has been unstinting of her time with scores of civic involvements, ranging from the American Red Cross to the Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity. As a member of the amfAR National Council, her energies in the war against AIDS have raised several millions of dollars.

In 1982, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. In 1990, she received an honorary doctorate in humanities from Boston University. In 1992, she received the Silver Mask for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1994, she was named a Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II. In 1996, she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame, and she also starred in CBS’s Mrs. Santa Claus. In 1997, she was given a Lifetime Achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild. She has been nominated for 16 Emmy Awards (12 for Murder, She Wrote). She has won six Golden Globe Awards (four for Murder, She Wrote) and has been nominated for an additional eight. In September 1997, President Clinton presented her with the National Medal of the Arts. In November 1999, Meadows School of the Arts at Texas’s Southern Methodist University presented Lansbury with their Lifetime Achievement Award. In December of 2000, Lansbury was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C.