After working as a prolific actress for three decades, Kristin Scott Thomas has announced her impending retirement from screen acting in a lengthy, informative profile for The Guardian. With extensive experience crafting films for both the multiplexes and art houses, she cites the monotony of the filmmaking process as the reason for her retirement. The 53-year-old actress simply stated, “I’m bored by it. So I’m stopping.” Unlike many actresses of her stature, Thomas is vocal about her discontent with the industry. “I just can’t stand sitting around for hours in a great big luxury trailer, waiting, bored out of my head,” she says.
Looking back on Thomas’ list of films, however, may offer a more pertinent reason for her retirement. The UK actress has played, in multiple languages, everything from an Oedipal mother (Only God Forgives) to a WWII nurse (The English Patient, for which she earned an Oscar nomination); perhaps, there simply isn’t a role or an archetype she hasn’t exhausted in her 60+ listed film credits. While she says she fears being typecast as the years go on, the actress also discusses a few other reasons.
“The kinds of films that I do are usually quite rapidly put together, and it always seems to be a little bit of a shambles. I like filming, but what I don’t like is having to rearrange things and rewrite scenes. I just can’t be bothered,” Thomas says, and adding, “I’m often asked to do something because I’m going to be a sort of weight to their otherwise flimsy production. They need me for production purposes, basically. So they give me a little role in something where they know I’m going to be able to turn up, know what to do, cry in the right place. I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds, but I keep doing these things for other people, and last year I just decided life’s too short. I don’t want to do it any more.”
Although her current decision is to stop acting — in film only, plays are still on the table — Thomas is open only to working on films “she absolutely can’t resist.” With four upcoming features still in some form of production, we’ll have to see how long these feelings last, but for now, check out the Guardian’s full profile on Thomas here and let us know your thoughts on her current withdraw from cinema in the comments below.