Eve Best

Eve Best
Eve Best at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Benefit, 2009
Born	Emily Best (1971-07-31) 31 July 1971 Ladbroke Grove, London
Occupation	Actress, director
Years active	1995–present

Emily "Eve" Best (born 31 July 1971) is an English stage and screen actress and director, known for her television roles as Dr. O'Hara in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie (2009–13), First Lady Dolley Madison in the American Experience television special (2011), and Monica Chatwin in the BBC miniseries The Honourable Woman (2014). She also played Wallis Simpson in the 2010 film The King's Speech.

Best won the 2005 Olivier Award for Best Actress for playing the title role in Hedda Gabler. She made her Broadway debut in the 2007 revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play, and receiving the first of two nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, the second was for the revival of The Homecoming in 2008. She returned to Broadway in the 2015 revival of Old Times.

Early life and education

Best grew up in Ladbroke Grove, London, daughter of a design journalist and an actress. She attended Wycombe Abbey Girls’ School before going on to Lincoln College, Oxford, where she read English. Some of her earliest public performances were with the W11 Opera children's opera company in London at the age of nine. After graduating from Oxford where she had appeared in Oxford University Dramatic Society productions, and toured to the Edinburgh Festival, she made her professional debut as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the Southwark Playhouse.

Career

After a period working on the London fringe, Best trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. After graduating in 1999 she appeared in a revival of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Young Vic for which she won both the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle best newcomer awards; she adopted her grandmother's name as a stage name, as an Emily Best was already registered with British Actors' Equity Association.

Best won an Laurence Olivier Award for playing the title role in Hedda Gabler and was nominated for the same award the following year for her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's play A Moon For The Misbegotten at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

In early 2007, she starred in a Sheffield Crucible production of As You Like It which played for a short time at the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford as part of their Complete Works season. In the same year she performed in the Broadway transfer of A Moon For The Misbegotten for which she was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Play.

Best appeared in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Cort Theatre in New York, which co-starred Ian McShane, Raúl Esparza and Michael McKean. Daniel Sullivan directed the 20-week limited engagement, which ran until 13 April 2008. She once again appeared as Beatrice in a critically acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2011, playing opposite Charles Edwards as Benedick and starred in the Old Vic production of The Duchess of Malfi in 2012. She made her directorial debut with a production of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2013.

Television appearances include Prime Suspect: The Final Act (2006), Waking the Dead (2004), Shackleton (2002), and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2005).

She appears as Lucrece in the Naxos audiobook version of Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece. She also starred in a 2000 BBC Radio 4 production of Emma.

Best co-stars as Dr. Eleanor O'Hara in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, that premiered in June 2009. She played the Duchess of Windsor – Wallis Simpson – in The King's Speech, starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

Best also co-stars as Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, alongside William Hurt in The Challenger, a British made for TV dramatization of the Rogers Commission set up to investigate the Challenger accident of 1986.

In summer 2014 Best played Cleopatra, the leading role in the Shakespeare's Globe version of Antony and Cleopatra. She returned to Broadway in the 2015 revival of the Pinter play Old Times, opposite Clive Owen and Kelly Reilly.

Film, TV, stage

Best, after performing in A Moon for the Misbegotten in New York City, 27 May 2007

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Brilliant!	Nina	(short)
2002	Shackleton	Eleanor Shackleton	TV Movie
2004	Lie With Me	Roselyn Tyler
2004	The Lodge	Yuni	(short)
2006	Prime Suspect: The Final Act	Linda Philips	TV Movie
2010	The King's Speech	Wallis Simpson
2014	Someone You Love	Kate
2014	Unity	Narrator	Documentary

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	The Bill	Anne	Episode: Beasts
2000	Casualty	Amber Hope	Episode: Seize the Night
2001	The Infinite Worlds of H. G. Wells	Ellen McGillvray	TV mini-series
2004	Waking the Dead	Natasha Bloom	Episode: Shadowplay: Part 1
2005	The Inspector Lynley Mysteries	Amanda Gibson	Episode: In Divine Proportion
2006	Vital Signs	Sarah Cartwright	6 episodes
2009–2013	Nurse Jackie	Dr. Eleanor O'Hara	Main cast (Recurring in Season 5)
2010	American Experience	Dolley Madison	Episode: Dolley Madison
2010	The Shadow Line	Petra Mayler	3 episodes
2012	Up All Night	Yvonne Encanto	Episode: New Boss
2013	The Challenger	Sally Ride
2014	New Worlds	Angelica Fanshawe	Episodes 1–3
2014	The Honourable Woman	Monica Chatwin	Episodes 1–8
2015	Life in Squares	Vanessa Bell

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Location
1995	Much Ado About Nothing	Beatrice	Southwark Playhouse, London
1996	Sisters, Brothers		Gate Theatre, London
1999	'Tis Pity She's a Whore	Annabella	Young Vic, London
2000	The Heiress	Catherine	Royal National Theatre, London
2000	The Cherry Orchard	Varya	Royal National Theatre, London
2001	Macbeth	Lady Macbeth	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2002	The Misanthrope	Jennifer	Chichester Festival Theatre
2002	The Coast of Utopia	Liubov Bakunin	Royal National Theatre, London
2003	Three Sisters	Masha	Royal National Theatre, London
2003	Mourning Becomes Electra	Lavinia Mannon	Royal National Theatre, London
2005	Hedda Gabler	Hedda	Almeida, London and Duke of York's Theatre, London
2006–07	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Josie	Old Vic, London and Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York
2007	As You Like It	Rosalind	Sheffield Crucible and Swan Theatre (Stratford)
2007–08	The Homecoming	Ruth	Cort Theatre, New York
2011	Much Ado About Nothing	Beatrice	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2012	The Duchess of Malfi	The Duchess	Old Vic, London
2013	Macbeth	Director	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2014	Antony and Cleopatra	Cleopatra	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2015	Old Times	Anna	American Airlines Theatre, Broadway

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
1999	Evening Standard Award	The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer	'Tis Pity She's a Whore	Won
1999	Critics' Circle Theatre Award	The Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer (other than a playwright)	'Tis Pity She's a Whore	Won
2003	Critics' Circle Theatre Award	Best Actress	Mourning Becomes Electra	Won
2005	Critics' Circle Theatre Award	Best Actress	Hedda Gabler	Won
2006	Laurence Olivier Award	Best Actress	Hedda Gabler	Won
2007	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Actress in a Play	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Won
2007	Laurence Olivier Award	Best Actress	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Nominated
2007	Tony Award	Best Actress	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Nominated
2008	Tony Award	Best Actress	The Homecoming	Nominated

External links

• Eve Best at the Internet Movie Database
• Eve Best at the Internet Broadway Database
• Interview with the Sunday Times
• W11 Opera