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| Called "one of the most beautiful women to come on screen in the last 10 years" by Kevin Costner, the dark-haired, British-born Olivia Williams burst out of relative obscurity to play Abby, an independent post-apocalyptic woman looking for a man to inseminate her, in Costner's "The Postman" (1997). Having trained for the stage at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Williams had been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and toured the USA in a production of "Richard III", starring Ian McKellen. Her lone appearance before the cameras had been in British TV's "Jane Austin's 'Emma'" (1996), which aired in this country on A&E. Two weeks before the start date of "The Postman", Costner was still without his Abby, but seeing Williams' smile on an audition video, he flew her to L.A. and, after reading with her for the producers, gambled on the unknown commodity (though asking her to work on her American accent). Williams was then tapped to portray a widowed first grade teacher who finds herself the object of affection of both a high school student and one of the school's wealthy patrons in the superb comedy "Rushmore" (1998).Williams' next major role was in 1999's supernatural smash "The Sixth Sense," playing Bruce Willis' melancholy wife. She subsequently appeared in lesser fare, had her small role edited out of "A Knight's Tale," and finally resurfaced in major efforts in 2002, including a turn as a nurse trapped on a haunted submarine in the thriller "Below" and in George Hickenlooper's arthouse film "The Man from Elysian Fields" with Andy Garcia and Mick Jagger. |
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