Saffron Burrows

Actress

Birthday October 22, 1972

Birth Sign Libra

Birthplace St Pancras, London, England

Age 51 years old

Nationality United Kingdom

Height 1.83 m

#5002 Most Popular

1940

She co-starred with Kate Winslet and Dougray Scott in Michael Apted's 1940s drama Enigma.

She starred in Tempted, an improvised thriller set in New Orleans, with Burt Reynolds and Peter Facinelli.

Mike Figgis' ensemble feature Hotel followed, re-uniting Burrows with some colleagues from Timecode, including Salma Hayek and Danny Huston in Venice, where she played the Duchess of Malfi.

1972

Saffron Domini Burrows (born 22 October 1972) is a British actress who has appeared in films such as Circle of Friends, Wing Commander, Deep Blue Sea, Gangster No. 1, Enigma, Troy, Reign Over Me, and The Bank Job.

On the small screen, she has starred as Lorraine Weller on Boston Legal, Dr. Norah Skinner on My Own Worst Enemy, Detective Serena Stevens on Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Victoria Hand on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D..

She appeared as Cynthia Taylor on the Amazon Video series Mozart in the Jungle and as Dottie Quinn in the Netflix series You.

A Londoner, Burrows was born in St Pancras and grew up in Stoke Newington, her mother a trade unionist and primary school teacher in Hackney and her father an architect and teacher.

Her parents and stepfather were Socialist Workers Party members, and Burrows was politically active from a young age.

Burrows attended William Tyndale Primary School in Islington and then Stoke Newington School.

When asked for her preference of a school in Hackney or Hampstead, she said she wanted to be in a multicultural, inclusive environment.

She enrolled in acting classes at the Anna Scher Theatre when she was 11.

Burrows had a successful modelling career after she was discovered at age 15 in Covent Garden by fashion photographer Beth Boldt.

For five years she divided her time between London and Paris, where she learned French.

She found the modelling world's "obsession with the ideal of the body" troubling.

1993

Burrows made her film debut in 1993 with a small role in Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father.

1995

Her first significant acting roles came in 1995, as an ambitious young Irishwoman in Circle of Friends, and in Ngozi Onwurah's Welcome II The Terrordome.

1996

She starred in the BBC production of Dennis Potter's Karaoke (1996), and in Hotel de Love, Lovelife, Nevada, One Night Stand and The Matchmaker.

1999

In 1999 she appeared in Mike Figgis' experimental film The Loss of Sexual Innocence, where she played twins: one raised in England, the other in Italy.

She appeared in the thriller film Deep Blue Sea, and had the title role in a film of Miss Julie, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

In 1999 she appeared with Stellan Skarsgård in Timecode (2000), a split-screen digital experimental film shot in a single take with no edits.

She followed it with Gangster No. 1 with Malcolm McDowell, Paul Bettany and David Thewlis.

2002

In 2002, she had a cameo role in Hayek's produced biopic Frida.

She then dedicated herself to stage work.

She was directed by Deborah Warner at the Royal National Theatre in Jeanette Winterson's The Powerbook.

The play toured, visiting the Theatre National Du Chaillot, Paris, and the Teatro Argentina, Rome.

Burrows performed in Spanish in The Galindez File, a film written by Spanish novelist Vazquez Montalban about a woman seeking the truth about the disappearance of a critic of the Dominican dictator Trujillo.

2004

In 2004, she played the part of Andromache in Troy.

2005

In January 2005, she created the role of Janey in the world premiere of Earthly Paradise at the Almeida Theatre.

The play of a love triangle between Janey Morris; her husband William Morris, the writer and proponent of the Arts and Crafts movement; and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite painter.

Theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh said of her performance in The Earthly Paradise that "Burrows takes to the stage like a swan to water ... She deserves no end of watching."

On 30 October 2005, she appeared on stage at the Old Vic theatre in London in a rehearsed reading of the 24-hour play Night Sky, alongside Christopher Eccleston.

2006

In 2006, Burrows was the female lead in the New Zealand thriller Perfect Creature.

That same year, she worked with Chilean director Raoul Ruiz on Klimt, his cinematic version of the life of Gustav Klimt.

In this film, she played opposite John Malkovich as the artist's lover, a woman of many personalities and nationalities.

She performed in Hal Hartley's Fay Grim.

Onstage in 2006, Burrows starred opposite David Schwimmer in Neil Labute's world premiere of Some Girl(s) at the Gielgud theatre, London.

She then starred opposite Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler in Mike Binder's Reign Over Me.

Burrows played the female lead roles in the Indian film thriller Broken Thread, and in Dangerous Parking, a drama directed by Peter Howitt.

2007

On television, Burrows played attorney Lorraine Weller on ABC's Boston Legal (Season 4) from 2007 to 2008.

2008

She starred on NBC's 2008 series, My Own Worst Enemy.