Romola Garai

Romola Sadie Garai (/ˈrɒmələ ˈseɪdi ˈɡæri/; born 6 August 1982) is an English actress. She is known for appearing in the films Amazing Grace, Atonement, and Glorious 39, and in BBC series such as Emma, The Hour, and The Crimson Petal and the White. She has been nominated twice for a Golden Globe Award.

Early life

Garai was born in Hong Kong to British parents. Her mother, Janet A. (née Brown), raised Romola and her three siblings and her father, Adrian E. R. Garai, is a bank manager. Her first name is the female version of the Italian name Romolo, from Romulus, one of the founders of Rome. Romola is also the main character of George Eliot's novel of the same name. Her father's family were of Jewish immigrant background. Garai's great-grandfather, Bernhard "Bert" Garai, an immigrant from Hungary, founded the Keystone Press Agency, a photographic agency and archive, in London, in the early twentieth century.

Garai is the third of four siblings. She moved to Singapore at five, before her family returned to Wiltshire in England when she was eight. She attended an independent boarding school, Stonar School in Wiltshire, and later moved at sixteen to London to attend the City of London School for Girls, where she completed her A-levels. She was fond of drama and appeared in school plays, and also with the National Youth Theatre up until the age of eighteen, where she was spotted by an agent who signed her to play the younger version of Dame Judi Dench's character in the BBC Films/HBO co-production for television, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells.