This strikingly beautiful player of the English stage gave several attention-getting performances in British and American TV-movies and international co-productions before making a big splash in Hollywood features: three starring roles in one year (1994-95) alone. Ormond studied acting at London's Webber-Douglas Academy and went on to amass such stage credits as "The Rehearsal", "Wuthering Heights", and "The Crucible". PBS viewers first encountered Ormond as the junkie Cambridge student daughter of a British official involved in the war on drugs in "Traffik", a British miniseries broadcast in the USA in 1990 on "Masterpiece Theatre". Ormond starred as Russia's Catherine the Great in the miniseries "Young Catherine" (TNT, 1991). She also appeared in two little-seen international films: Peter Greenaway's "The Baby of Macon" (1993), a tale of the 17th century Medicis which co-starred Ralph Fiennes, and "Nostradamus" (1994), a biopic of the famed visionary played by Tcheky Karyo. Filmmaker Edward Zwick was so impressed by her performance opposite Robert Duvall in the HBO biopic "Stalin" (1992, as the dictator's wife) that he cast her as the pivotal female lead in "Legends of the Fall" (1994).This large-scale World War I-era family drama featured Brad Pitt, Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas as the sons of Western patriarch Anthony Hopkins; Ormond's character impacts upon the lives of each of these men. Next came the Richard Gere and Sean Connery starrer "First Knight" (1995), with Ormond playing Guinevere to their Lancelot and King Arthur, respectively. The film did not win the hearts of critics or audiences.
By the time "First Knight" opened, Ormond had bobbed her waist-length brown hair to play "Sabrina" in the 1995 remake of the 1954 Audrey Hepburn vehicle. It was a no-win situation for the actress: no matter how good her performance (and her reviews were not generally unkind), she would be unfavorably compared to the recently-deceased actress who had created the role. The prison thriller "Captives", which Ormond shot in the Great Britain after "Legends of the Fall", received a more modest and brief US art-house run shortly thereafter, while Ormond kept busy on a series of both large and smaller-scale international projects (e.g., "Smilla's Sense of Snow" 1997; "The Barber of Siberia" 1999).
Profession(s):
Actor, producer, waitress
Sometimes Credited As:
Julia Karin Ormond
Emmy Award Investigative Journalism "Calling the Ghosts" 1998
CableACE Award International Informational Special or Series "Calling the Ghosts" 1997
ShoWest Award Female Star of Tomorrow 1995
London Drama Critics' Award Most Promising Newcomer "Faith, Hope and Charity" 1989
2008 Played Abigail Breslin's mother in the family film, "Kit Kittredge: An American Girl"
2007 Played Lindsay Lohan's mother in the thriller "I Know Who Killed Me"
2006 Appeared in David Lynch's "Inland Empire"
2004 Co-starred in the HBO film about the American women's suffrage movement, "Iron Jawed Angels"
2001 Acted opposite Vince Vaughn and Ed Harris in "The Prime Gig"; film released direct-to-video after screenings at film festivals
2001 Had featured role in the Showtime movie "Varian's War"
2000 Returned to the London stage in David Hare's "My Zinc Bed"
1999 Starred in Nikita Mikhalkov's epic "The Barber of Siberia"
1997 Signed production deal with Fox Searchlight Pictures
1997 Had lead in "Smilla's Sense of Snow"
1996 Executive produced the documentary "Calling the Ghosts: A Story About Rape, War and Women"
1995 Cast as Guenevere opposite Sean Connery's Arthur and Richard Gere's Lancelot in "First Knight"
1995 Had title role in Sydney Pollack's ill-fated remake of "Sabrina"
1994 First feature released in the US, "Nostradamus"
1994 Breakthrough role in "Legends of the Fall" with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins
1993 Feature debut, Peter Greenaway's "The Baby of Macon"
1992 Won acclaim for her portrayal of Nadya Alliluyeva, the wife of "Stalin" in the HBO biopic
1991 Starred as Catherine the Great on the TNT miniseries "Young Catherine"
1990 American TV debut, "Traffik"; aired on PBS's "Masterpiece Theatre"
1989 Breakthrough stage role in Christopher Hampton's play "Faith, Hope and Charity"
First acting job was in a TV commercial for cottage cheese
Formed Indican Productions
Will reunite with Brad Pitt in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (lensed 2007)