Saffron Burrows
About
Biography
Filmography
Family & Companions
Notes
"The longer you're in the business, the more you become immunized against the absurdities, y'know? The fact that they built the [film] Industry on a fault line tells you something." --Saffron Burrows quoted in Movieline, November 1997.
Biography
A statuesque, six-foot-tall Brit gifted at portraying women with an icy cool exterior and a complex, fiery persona percolating underneath, former model Saffron Burrows built an early career on her innate physical beauty and quickly established that she was capable of portraying both soft corners and sharp edges. The daughter of highly political, socialist-feminist parents, as a child Burrows sold the Socialist Worker newsletter for pocket money, attended marches and rallies after school with her activist mother and stepfather, and shared her home with striking miners. Burrows was 15 when she was discovered by the same model scout who set Naomi Campbell on the path to fame, moving to Paris to work for Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Yves St Laurent. After five years, however, she had became so disillusioned with the fashion industry that, having studied drama since her childhood, she segued into acting. At 20 Burrows was cast in her first starring role opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in "The Name of the Father" (1993), playing his girlfriend both on and off screen. Next Burrows enticed Chris O'Donnell to cheat on Minnie Driver in "Circle of Friends" (1995), and though the movie did not launch her in quite the same way it did Driver, her career steadily gathered steam-and she also became popular fodder for the hungry British press after an engagement to actor Alan Cumming ended when he left her for a man. On screen, Burrows next appeared as a nightclub hostess in two 1996 British TV 1996 productions written by Dennis Potter, "Karaoke" and "Cold Lazarus" (both seen in the USA on Bravo in 1997), and the actress co-starred as a woman who comes between two brothers in the Australian comedy "Hotel de Love" (1997). Burrows also starred as Janeane Garofalo's romantic competition for David O'Hara in "The Matchmaker" (1997) and was tapped for a role in Woody Allen's "Celebrity" (1998). Her strong turn as a moderately successful writer in the quirky comedy "Lovelife" (1997) was relegated to the video shelves but a bit in Mike Figgis' "One Night Stand" (also 1997) led him to cast her in a featured role as twins in "The Death and the Loss of Sexual Innocence" (1999), then as the leading lady in his adaptation of August Strindberg's play "Miss Julie" (1999), yet again in the ensemble cast of his experimental four-way split-screen, digitally shot "Timecode" (2000), and finally as the Duchess of Malfi in his film "Hotel" (2001). Her first bid for mainstream Hollywood stardom came in 1999 with a role as starship pilot Lt. Cmdr. 'Angel' Devereaux in the video game adaptation "Wing Commander" opposite Freddie Prinze, Jr., and as the oceanographer heroine of Renny Harlin's shark flick "Deep Blue Sea." She quickly returned back to artier, edgier and more high-minded fare, such as the British crime drama "Gangster No. 1" (2000) opposite Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell. Burrows' exotic, unreadable qualities came to the fore in director Michael Apted's "Enigma" (2001), a World War II thriller about the effort to crack Nazi spy codes in which she plays the lover of a code-cracker (Dougray Scott) who mysteriously disappears. In "Tempted" (2001) she played the beautiful young wife of an older man (Burt Reynolds) who puts her fidelity to the test by hiring a younger man (Peter Facinelli) to seduce her. Another frequent Figgis collaborator, Salma Hayek, cast Burrows in a supporting role in her highly-praised biopic "Frida" (2002), and the actress starred opposite Harvey Keitel in the little-seen drama "The Galindez File" (2003). Just as it seemed that Burrows and conventional Hollywood had significantly cooled on each other--her only mainstream role in years being the voice of the narrator in the 2003 film production of "Peter Pan"--until she was cast opposite Brad Pitt as the unfortunate Trojan princess Andromache in director Wolfgang Petersen's Homeric epic "Troy" (2004). After a supporting role in the foreign-made "Klimt" (2006), a biopic of famed Austrian artist Gustav Klimt (John Malkovich), Burrows played a mentally unstable dental patient who accuses her dentist (Don Cheadle) of sexual assault in "Reign Over Me" (2007). After starring in the drama "Dangerous Parking" (2007) and Amy Redford's "The Guitar" (2008), Burrows played the female lead opposite Jason Statham in action thriller "The Bank Job" (2008) and opposite Kevin Spacey in Hollywood satire "Shrink" (2009). During this period, Burrows also began working in television, co-starring on "Boston Legal" (ABC 2004-08) in its final season before joining "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" (NBC/USA 2001-2011) as a detective for the long-running show's ninth season. Following roles in black comedy "Small Apartments" (2012) and political thriller "Knife Fight" (2012), Burrows had an arc on superhero series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." (ABC 2013- ), following by a starring role in steaming series "Mozart in the Jungle" (Amazon 2014- ). Between seasons of that series, she appeared in indie comedy "Quitters" (2015).
Filmography
Cast (Feature Film)
Music (Feature Film)
Misc. Crew (Feature Film)
Cast (Special)
Life Events
1990
Made screen debut in the documentary "The Body Beautiful" about the modeling business
1993
Made film acting debut in Jim Sheridan's "In the Name of the Father"
1995
Had featured role in "Circle of Friends," opposite Chris O'Donnell and Minnie Driver
1996
Appeared in the British TV productions of "Karaoke" and "Cold Lazarus"; both written by Dennis Potter
1997
Featured in "Hotel du Love"
1999
Co-starred in Mike Figgis' "The Loss of Sexual Identity"
2000
Had featured role in Figgis' experimental "Timecode"
2000
Acted in the British drama "Gangster No. 1"
2001
Co-starred in the WWII film, "Enigma"
2001
Appeared in the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation, "The Seventh Stream"
2002
Reteamed with Figgis to play the Duchess of Malfi in "Hotel"
2004
Starred as Andromache, wife of Prince Hector, in Wofgang Petersen's epic "Troy"
2005
Appeared on stage at the Old Vic theatre in London in "Night Sky"
2007
Played a patient of Don Cheadle's character in Mike Binder's "Reign Over Me"
2007
Co-starred in Raoul Ruiz's film, "Klimt" about the late Austrian artist Gustav Klimt who is portrayed by John Malkovich
2007
Joined the fourth season of ABC's "Boston Legal" as Lorraine Weller, a sexy attorney who once had a fling with Alan Shore (James Spader)
2008
Starred in "The Bank Job" directed by Roger Donaldson and based on a 1971 true life robbery
2010
Had the recurring role of Serena Stevens on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"
2013
Had a recurring guest role on Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
2014
Began playing promiscuous cello player Cynthia on Amazon's "Mozart in the Jungle"
2016
Played Tina Max in TV movie "The List"
Companions
Bibliography
Notes
"The longer you're in the business, the more you become immunized against the absurdities, y'know? The fact that they built the [film] Industry on a fault line tells you something." --Saffron Burrows quoted in Movieline, November 1997.
