Kristin Scott Thomas

Kristin Scott Thomas

Author: BBC Radio 4 March 30, 2003 Duration: 36:05

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actress Kristin Scott Thomas. She was born in Redruth, Cornwall in 1960. Her father, a Naval pilot, was killed in a crash when she was five. Her mother married another pilot six years later, but he was also killed under similar circumstances. Kristin moved around the country with her parents and four siblings until she went to Cheltenham Ladies College at the age of eight, where she was 'always bottom of the class'.

On leaving school she didn't go to drama school, but took up a teaching course instead. When she tried to move over to the acting course she was told the only way she'd get to play Lady Macbeth was if she joined an amateur dramatic society. Stung, she moved to Paris where she was encouraged by the family she was working for to enroll at a Parisian drama school, which she did. She has worked almost constantly since, in France, England and America, on stage, television and film.

Her first starring film role was opposite Prince in his film Under the Cherry Moon and others soon followed. Among her most famous roles are Lady Brenda in A Handful of Dust, Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Katherine Clifton in The English Patient. She has lived in Paris ever since moving there at the age of 19 and is married to a French obstetrician, Francois Olivennes. The couple have three children aged 14, 10 and two. Kristin Scott Thomas is in London to appear in Chekov's Three Sisters at the Playhouse in the West End. This is her first British stage appearance.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Morgen, Op.27.No 4 by Richard Strauss Book: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen Luxury: A pair of mules by Christian Louboutin


The Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005 podcast opens a unique window into a pivotal era, drawing from the BBC Radio 4 archives. This isn't just a collection of interviews about music; it's a deeply personal exploration of life, ambition, and memory through the voices of the early 21st century. Each episode presents a guest from this period-be they an artist, a politician, a scientist, or an activist-facing the program's enduring and revealing premise: selecting the eight pieces of music they would take if stranded alone. The conversation that unfolds around these choices is where the magic happens. The host gently guides them from their selections into stories of childhood influences, career-defining moments, personal triumphs, and profound losses. You'll hear the crackle of a vinyl record lead into a confession, or a symphony cue a tale of resilience. Listening to this podcast feels like uncovering a time capsule of cultural and emotional history, where a pop song can explain a political stance and a classical adagio can frame a love story. It’s an intimate study of character and a testament to how the soundtrack of our lives shapes our identity. These archived conversations, preserved in this podcast, remain compelling because they bypass the superficial, using music as the key to unlock genuine human experience.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2000-2005
Podcast Episodes
Vittorio Radice [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:32
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Vittorio Radice. Born in 1957 and brought up near Lake Como, Radice is the son of a furniture retailer. He surprised himself and his family by studying agriculture at Milan University,…
Meera Syal [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:49
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor and writer Meera Syal. She was born in the sixties after her parents had immigrated here from the Punjab and brought up in Essington, a Staffordshire mining village five miles…
Derek Brown [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:41
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Derek Brown the Director of the Michelin Red Guides which are the French bible for restaurants. The original Guide was invented in 1900 to help travellers in France find good food at re…
Franco Zeffirelli [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:40
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the director Franco Zeffirelli. He was born the illegitimate son of a philandering businessman and a successful fashion designer, both of whom were married to other people. Unable to gi…
George Fenton [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:57
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the composer George Fenton, whose work includes music for Groundhog Day, Shadowlands, Cry Freedom, The Company of Wolves and The Fisher King. Born George Howe in South London in 1950, h…
Professor A H Halsey [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:12
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the sociologist and Oxford Emeritus Professor A H Halsey. Prof Halsey played a key part in the switch to comprehensives as an adviser to Labour Education Secretary Anthony Crossland in…
Rory Bremner [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:59
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the impressionist and satirist Rory Bremner. He was born in Edinburgh in 1961. A self-confessed show-off, he started doing impersonations at primary school, sending up teachers, sports…
Margaret Atwood [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:05
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer Margaret Atwood. Born just after the outbreak of the Second World War, Margaret Atwood spent much of her childhood in the Canadian outback where her father's work involved st…
David Gilmour [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:38
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. Gilmour grew up in Cambridge, where his father was a senior lecturer in zoology and his mother was also a lecturer and film editor. He was educated at a pri…
Claude-Michel Schonberg [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:09
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the composer of the hit musicals Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, Claude-Michel Schönberg. Claude-Michel always knew he would be a composer. As a small boy growing up in Brittany he woul…