Rebecca Hall

Early life

Hall was born on 3 May 1982 in London, the daughter of English stage director and Royal Shakespeare Company founder Peter Hall and American opera singer Maria Ewing. Her mother is of African American, Dutch, Scottish, and Sioux origin. Her parents separated when she was still young, eventually divorcing in 1990. Hall has five half-siblings: stage director Edward Hall, producer Christopher Hall, actresses Jennifer Caron Hall and Emma Hall, and set designer Lucy Hall.

Hall attended Roedean School, where she became head girl. She studied English Literature at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, before dropping out in 2002 just before her final year. During her time at Cambridge, she was active in the student theatre scene and also set up her own theatre company. She was a member of the Marlowe Society and starred alongside housemate Dan Stevens, who was an English literature student at Emmanuel College, in several critically acclaimed productions.

Film and television

Hall's first professional role came in 1992, when she appeared as young Sophy in her father's television adaptation of Mary Wesley's The Camomile Lawn at the age of 10. Her feature film debut came in 2006 as Rebecca Epstein in the film adaptation of David Nicholls's Starter for Ten. She got her breakthrough with the role of Sarah Borden in Christopher Nolan's film The Prestige (2006). She then appeared in Stephen Poliakoff's Joe's Palace in 2007, as well as appearing in several other television films including Wide Sargasso Sea and Rubberheart.

Hall's Hollywood fame grew when she starred in the Woody Allen film Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) as one of the title characters, Vicky. Her performance was well-received, and she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. In 2008, she appeared in Ron Howard's historical drama Frost/Nixon as the girlfriend of Michael Sheen's David Frost. The following year she was cast in the British fantasy-horror film Dorian Gray based on Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Following a small role in the indie film Please Give, Hall starred in Ben Affleck's crime drama The Town (2010) opposite Affleck and Jon Hamm. In June 2010, she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Paula Garland in the 2009 Channel 4 production Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974. The following year she played the female lead in the British ghost film The Awakening, released in September 2011.

In 2012, She took on the role of Beth Raymer in the comedy-drama film Lay the Favourite, based on Raymer's memoir of the same title; one review commented that she "plays Raymer as an endearing force of nature who somehow manages to survive in a dangerous world through sheer force of character." She next starred in the BBC/HBO/VRT production of Parade's End (2012) opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, which earned her a BAFTA Television Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2013, Hall replaced Jessica Chastain as Maya Hansen in the superhero film Iron Man 3. The same year she appeared in the political thriller Closed Circuit (2013). She then starred opposite Johnny Depp in Wally Pfister's directorial debut Transcendence (2014). In 2015, Hall starred in the romantic comedy Tumbledown and Joel Edgerton's directorial debut The Gift.

In the 2016 biographical drama Christine, Hall played the role of real-life news reporter Christine Chubbuck. Her performance received critical praise, with Variety calling her "discomfitingly electric in the best role she’s yet been offered".

Stage

Hall's professional stage debut came in 2002 when she starred as Vivie in her father's production of Mrs Warren's Profession at the Strand Theatre in London. Her performance, described as "admirable" and "accomplished", earned her the Ian Charleson Award in 2003.

In 2003, Hall's father celebrated fifty years as a theatre director by staging a season of five plays at the Theatre Royal in Bath, Somerset. Hall starred in two of these plays; she appeared as Rosalind in her father's production of As You Like It, which gained her a second Charleson nomination and starred in the title role of Thea Sharrock's revival of D. H. Lawrence's The Fight for Barbara. In 2004, Hall appeared in three plays for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal, two of which her father directed, namely Man and Superman in which she played Ann, and Galileo's Daughter in which she played Sister Maria Celeste. The third, Molière's Don Juan, in which she played the part of Elvira, was directed by Sharrock.

In 2005, Hall reprised the role of Rosalind in a touring production of As You Like It, again under the direction of her father. This tour took in the following venues: The Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames; The Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York; The Curran Theatre at San Francisco; The Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. This was a second leg of the U.S. tour that began in 2003 with venues at the Shubert Theater New Haven, Connecticut, Columbus, Ohio, and the historic Wilbur Theater in Boston.

In 2008–09, she appeared in Sam Mendes's first instalment of the Bridge Project, as Hermione in The Winter's Tale and Varya in The Cherry Orchard, which gave performances with the same cast in Germany, Greece, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2010–11, she played Viola in a production of Twelfth Night at London's National Theatre, which her father directed.

Hall made her Broadway debut in Sophie Treadwell's expressionist play Machinal in 2013. The Roundabout Theatre production, directed by Lyndsey Turner, began previews on 20 December 2013, with the official opening set for 16 January 2014 at the American Airlines Theatre.

Personal life

In September 2015, Hall married her Machinal co-star Morgan Spector.