Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress known for her roles in period, romance, and action films. The only child between actors Richard Beckinsale and Judy Loe, Kate Beckinsale made her acting debut when she was only a year old, as an extra on the British daytime drama Couples (1975), on which her parents also appeared. She didn't act again until she was nearly an adult, beginning in 1991 with a small voice role in an episode of the miniseries adaptation of P. D. James' Devices and Desires and a supporting role in the television movie One Against the Wind starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill. The following year, she starred in the Blade Runner-inspired short film "Rachel's Dream" with Christopher Eccleston and debuted onstage in a production of Noël Coward's Hay Fever. In 1993, she costarred in the Anna Lee pilot "Headcase" and made her theatrical film debut with the brief but crucial role of Hero in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing whilst studying at the University of Oxford. Subsequently, she established herself in leading roles in numerous British costume dramas such as Prince of Jutland (1994), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Emma (1996), and The Golden Bowl (2000). She challenged herself by taking roles in films such as The Last Days of Disco (1998), Brokedown Palace (1999), Pearl Harbor (2001), Serendipity (2001), Tiptoes (2003), The Aviator (2004), and Click (2006).
Since taking the role of Selene in the Underworld film series (2003–2016), Beckinsale became known for her work in action films, including Van Helsing (2004), Whiteout (2009), Contraband (2012), Total Recall (2012), and Jolt (2021) while also earning acclaim for her roles in Snow Angels (2007), Nothing but the Truth (2008), Everybody's Fine (2009), Love & Friendship (2016), and The Only Living Boy in New York (2017). In recent years, she returned to television in the limited series The Widow (2019) and the abruptly-canceled dramedy Guilty Party (2021), also serving as an executive producer in the latter.
