Sadie Frost

A British actress who is probably best known to American audiences for her turn as a lusty society girl-turned-vampire in Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula and her former real-life role as the wife of Jude Law, Sadie Frost has resisted the pull of Hollywood in favor of a career in small British films. A number of these films have been the product of Natural Nylon, a production company that Frost founded with then-husband Law and actors Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor, and Sean Pertwee.

Born into a large bohemian family in London in 1967, Frost had her acting debut at the age of three in a Jelly Tots commercial. She studied acting at the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts when she was 11, and then ran away to Liverpool to become a punk. At the age of 19, Frost joined the Manchester Exchange Theatre, and that same year married Spandau Ballet frontman-cum-actor Gary Kemp, with whom she later co-starred in The Krays (1990) and the Polish arthouse film Papierowe Malzenstwo (1992). The marriage, which ended in 1997, produced one son.

Frost got her biggest break when she was cast in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992); although the film received very mixed reviews, many critics praised the actress' work as Winona Ryder's blood-sucking best friend. Frost resisted the lure of Hollywood, however, preferring to remain in her native country. In 1994, she starred in Shopping, a nihilistic urban drama that cast her as an Irish punk who, in the company of her boyfriend, enjoys adrenaline-fueled crime sprees. The film provided Frost with an introduction to Jude Law, who played her boyfriend. The two married in 1997 and had three children (two sons and a daughter) before they divorced in 2003.

Frost subsequently appeared largely in such art films as Rancid Aluminum (2000), in which she starred with Rhys Ifans, Tara Fitzgerald, and Joseph Fiennes. She also took part in such Natural Nylon productions as The Final Cut (1998), a drama about people doing nasty things, and Love, Honour and Obey (1999), a drama about a group of East London gangsters. In addition to her film work, Frost co-owns the fashion label Frost French with her close friend Jemima French.

~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide