Born in Zambia but raised (due to political unrest) in her father's hometown of Penzance, England, Newton began studying dance and acting at age 11 as a student at the UK's Arts Educational School. After "Flirting,” Newton chose to concentrate on her studies, majoring in social anthropology at Cambridge. Between exams, she maintained a busy film career, appearing in "The Young Americans" (1993), a crime drama starring Harvey Keitel, and Neil Jordan's blockbuster horror outing "Interview With the Vampire" (1994), as a sultry Creole maid who becomes Brad Pitt's first victim. 1995 brought additional exposure when Newton was cast in the Merchant-Ivory production "Jefferson in Paris.” As Sally Hemmings, slave and supposed mistress of future president Thomas Jefferson (Nick Nolte), Newton brought a beguiling innocence to the role and walked away with some of the best notices in an uneven film. After completing this role, Newton returned to Cambridge to finish her degree.
Her first post-graduate project was "The Journey of August King" (1995), as a runaway slave in 1815 protected by landowner Jason Patric. In Anna Campion's mystery thriller "Loaded" (filmed in 1993, released in 1996), Newton was one of a group of tragedy-prone high school grads. She reunited with director Duigan for the British-filmed "The Leading Man" (1996), in which she played an actress dallying with a movie star (Jon Bon Jovi). After a well-received turn as a drug addict in "GRIDLOCK'd" (1997), Newton landed the title role opposite Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover in "Beloved" (1998), based on the novel by Toni Morrison, where she demonstrated her powerful dramatic acting chops in a markedly unglamorous role, and she essayed Nyah Hall, the female lead opposite Tom Cruise in "Mission: Impossible 2" (2000), where she showed off her radiant beauty to the best effect yet and exhibited a gift for playing romantic heroines.
Despite two showy roles in dramatically different vehicles, however, Newton remained criminally underutilized in films. It wasn't until 2002 that Newton landed another major leading role, playing opposite of Mark Walhberg in the romantic thriller "The Truth About Charlie,” a remake of the 1963 Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn film "Charade." Jonathan Demme, Newton's "Beloved" director, cast her in the Hepburn role as the widow of a man revealed to be a spy who gets caught up in a romantic espionage scheme. After a turn in the well-regarded indie film "Shade" (2004) as a slinky, seductive card sharp con artist playing both ends of the deck, Newton resurfaced in the sci fi/action sequel "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004) as the sultry scheming Dame Vaako on the hunt for the fugitive Riddick (Vin Diesel).
Her next effort, as a member of the top-flight acting ensemble assembled for the racially charged, multi-plot drama "Crash" (2005) was one of her best; Newton played the biracial wife of a Hollywood director who is unnecessarily manhandled by a racist cop (Matt Dillon) during a routine traffic stop, with far-reaching results. Newton next had a short, but significant supporting role in “The Pursuit of Happyness” (2006), playing the wife of a loving and dedicated family man, Chris Gardner (Will Smith), who struggles to make ends meet for his family by selling unwanted medical equipment. Sick of unpaid bills, she leaves her husband and son to fend for themselves, resulting in Gardner taking an unpaid internship at a stock brokerage firm with little-to-no promise of gaining employment after the trial period. For the next year, Gardner honored his commitment to being a loving and caring father, while overcoming the many obstacles thrown in his path, including being evicted from his apartment, forcing both father and son to live in shelters and sometimes in public restrooms. She next starred opposite several incarnations of Eddie Murphy in “Norbit” (2006), a painfully unfunny comedy about a hapless man (Murphy) forced into marrying a large, mean and junk food-addicted woman (Murphy) just when his childhood sweetheart (Newton) moves back to town.
- Also Credited As: Thandiwe Newton
- Born: on 11/06/1972 in Zambia, Africa
- Job Titles: Actor
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