The critically acclaimed actor opens up about her deeply personal directorial debut.

PHOTOGRAPHY Jason Hetherington
STYLED BY Natasha Wray
Kristin Scott Thomas knows a thing or two about commanding presence. It&rsquo;s thanks to her scene-stealing nature that, four decades into a storied career that spans film, television, and theater, the Oscar-nominated actor, 65, is more in demand than ever. She portrays the take-no-prisoners British intelligence official Diana Taverner in AppleTV+&rsquo;s hit spy thriller&nbsp;Slow Horses, which returns for its much-anticipated fifth season in September. And just before she&rsquo;s off to shoot a French film this fall, she&rsquo;ll celebrate the release of her most personal project yet:&nbsp;My Mother&rsquo;s Wedding, a star-studded film that&rsquo;s inspired by her own upbringing in England&mdash;and also marks her directorial debut.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The bits in the story that are true are the most unbelievable,&rdquo; Scott Thomas tells&nbsp;L&rsquo;OFFICIEL&nbsp;from her home in the U.K. &ldquo;Because I had a catastrophic thing happen to me as a child, not once, but twice.&rdquo; The dramatic events in question&nbsp;do&nbsp;read like something out of a movie: Her father, Simon, a Royal Navy pilot, was killed in a flying accident before her sixth birthday; her mother, Deborah, remarried another Royal Navy pilot&mdash;a friend of Scott Thomas&rsquo;s father, also named Simon&mdash;only to lose him the same tragic way five years later. &ldquo;I was grieving, but I had absolutely nowhere to put it,&rdquo; recalls Scott Thomas, the eldest of five. &ldquo;In those dark days of the 1960s and 1970s, there was no therapy. There was no talking. You went to school the next day and carried on as if nothing happened.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Although she did eventually turn to therapy, Scott Thomas always looked at her &ldquo;intimate knowledge of loss&rdquo; as a fact of life; one that, from a young age, she refused to let define her. &ldquo;I did not have a tragic childhood,&rdquo; she clarifies. &ldquo;There were tragic&nbsp;events&nbsp;in my childhood.&rdquo; At 18, she moved to Paris&mdash;she now holds dual citizenship in the U.K. and France&mdash;and found herself studying acting. Her grief, it turned out, would become &ldquo;the battery&rdquo; for a career filled with critically acclaimed dramatic roles on film (The English Patient)&nbsp;and on stage (The Seagull). &ldquo;As an actress, it&rsquo;s very useful to be able to get an audience to understand and empathize with profound sadness,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I was also very good at keeping it all inside. I think that&rsquo;s why I ended up playing so many characters who have a secret.&rdquo;

Dress LOUIS VUITTON Sunglasses STYLIST’S OWN Ring KRISTIN’S OWN

The first time she publicly spoke about her family history, Scott Thomas had just filmed the 1986 musical rom-com&nbsp;Under the Cherry Moon&nbsp;with Prince. During her first-ever live TV interview, the journalist&mdash;&ldquo;a man with a cigarette and a gravelly voice&rdquo;&mdash;patronized the 25-year-old actor. &ldquo;He said,&nbsp;Tell me, little Kristin, what does your daddy think about you making a film with Prince?&rdquo; she remembers. &ldquo;I was enraged. I said,&nbsp;Oh, I don't know&mdash;he died when I was five, then my mother married again, and he died when I was 11. That shut him up.&rdquo; The off-the-cuff revelation only prompted more questions down the line. &ldquo;Every interview I&rsquo;ve done, this has been dragged up,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;It became my calling card&mdash;and I was fed up with other people telling my story.&rdquo;
A cathartic side project ultimately presented Scott Thomas with the opportunity to own her narrative once and for all. Realizing that her two younger brothers had no memories of their father, she worked with animation director Reza Riahi to bring her childhood recollections to life through short animated films. That was the genesis of&nbsp;My Mother&rsquo;s Wedding, which incorporates those same memory-inspired sequences and stars Scott Thomas as its titular matriarch, Diana Frost Munsen Loveglove. Taking place on the weekend of her nuptials, the film explores the unresolved grief of Diana&rsquo;s three adult daughters. &ldquo;These women have been affected by the same events but dealt with it in different ways,&rdquo; says Scott Thomas. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re all in romantic disarray, and because they&rsquo;ve hero-worshiped their fathers, their noses are slightly out of joint when their mother is getting married for the third time.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Coat DIOR

To play Diana&rsquo;s eldest child, Royal Navy captain Katherine, Scott Thomas tapped Scarlett Johansson, who played her daughter in both&nbsp;The Horse Whisperer&nbsp;(1998) and&nbsp;The Other Boleyn Girl&nbsp;(2008). &ldquo;Scarlett is a character actress in a star&rsquo;s body,&rdquo; says Scott Thomas. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s very much one of the team, and I think what we appreciate about each other is a shared sort of get-your-hands-dirty approach.&rdquo; Johansson didn&rsquo;t hesitate to sign on for the role. &ldquo;I was very excited to see that Kristin was directing a project and that it was something really personal to her,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;When I read the script, I really was enchanted by it. It almost reminded me of a Merchant Ivory film&mdash;the character stakes, the humor, and the intimacy. The specificity of it was really interesting to me.&rdquo;
The fact that Scott Thomas would be calling the shots on set was an added bonus. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s just a terrific actor, and I felt it would be rewarding for me, as an actor, to have her insight,&rdquo; says Johansson. &ldquo;Creatively, it can be such a rewarding partnership to have the shorthand actors can have when being directed by a fellow actor. You&rsquo;re speaking the same language.&rdquo; The dialect was even more precise for the pair, since they&rsquo;d shared the screen before. &ldquo;There was the kind of shorthand you have with someone that you&rsquo;ve worked with over the years, and who shares a similar way of working,&rdquo; says Johansson. &ldquo;I think it was a role that Kristin stepped into seamlessly. It was a pleasure to be directed by her.&rdquo;

Vest GIVENCHY BY SARAH BURTON

I would say I&rsquo;m quite romantic, even though I hate to admit it; I far prefer to be sensible.

Sienna Miller, who portrays Diana&rsquo;s middle daughter, actress Victoria, echoes that sentiment.&nbsp;"Kristin worked with such passion and focus,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Her instincts in directing actors were so acute, being such a wonderful and celebrated actor herself. I have admired her forever&mdash;the chance to play her daughter and simply be in her orbit was wonderful."&nbsp;Scott Thomas had never even considered anyone else for the part. &ldquo;I have to say, I did write the role for Sienna,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I knew she would just&nbsp;get it, and she did.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The trio of sisters is rounded out by Emily Beecham, who plays Diana&rsquo;s youngest daughter, hospital nurse Georgina; Freida Pinto also lends an added dose of star power in a supporting role. &ldquo;My favorite part of directing was just being able to drive these amazing actresses,&rdquo; says Scott Thomas. &ldquo;It was like being given the keys to an amazing Ferrari; it&rsquo;s a huge privilege to have someone with enormous talent on your set, saying your words.&rdquo; Onscreen, the slight friction between mother and daughters is sobering. &ldquo;She basically tells them that they&rsquo;re still little girls in love with their fathers,&rdquo; says Scott Thomas. &ldquo;But at some point in our lives, we do have to separate from our parents. And mothers&nbsp;do&nbsp;have love lives, and we shouldn&rsquo;t feel uncomfortable about that.&rdquo;&nbsp;
A twice-married mother of three herself, Scott Thomas found love in an unexpected place while co-writing the screenplay for&nbsp;My Mother&rsquo;s Wedding&nbsp;with Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait. After falling for each other during the creative process, the pair wed in 2024. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a real-life rom-com,&rdquo; says Scott Thomas (she&rsquo;s no stranger to the genre, having earned a BAFTA Award for her performance opposite Hugh Grant in 1994&rsquo;s&nbsp;Four Weddings and a Funeral). &ldquo;I would say I&rsquo;m quite romantic, even though I hate to admit it; I far prefer to be sensible.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Jacket, earrings, and belt SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO Cuff TIFFANY & CO

Another admission comes when reflecting on her early days of parenthood. &ldquo;I was always quite a hands-off mom,&rdquo; says Scott Thomas, who shares her kids with ex-husband Fran&ccedil;ois Olivennes. &ldquo;That was partly because of the nature of my work. I was traveling a lot, and the separation anxiety&hellip;I can't even think about that; it's so painful.&rdquo; She&rsquo;s happy to have moved on. &ldquo;I feel much closer to my children now than I did when they were little. I have three amazing, impressive adults in my life that I love to the ends of the world&mdash;and I have grandchildren, which, dare I say, is even better.&rdquo;&nbsp;
That maternal sense is evident in&nbsp;My Mother&rsquo;s Wedding, but it easily separates Scott Thomas from the&nbsp;other&nbsp;Diana that she portrays on&nbsp;Slow Horses. &ldquo;Maybe it&rsquo;s good fairy, bad fairy: Diana Taverner is the wicked witch, and Diana Loveglove is a sort of saint,&rdquo; she says.&rdquo; When fans approach her to discuss the former, &ldquo;they&rsquo;re always a little bit nervous and waiting for me to explode, because Diana Taverner is quite scary.&rdquo; The role is simply fun. &ldquo;I really enjoy the playing bit,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;That's why I like working with [co-star] Gary [Oldman], because he's very playful.&rdquo;
As the Deputy Director General of MI5, Scott Thomas&rsquo;s character is anything but. &ldquo;Even Diana's style is so controlled&mdash;there is not a hair out of place,&rdquo; she says. Embracing fashion more than her onscreen counterpart, she was thrilled to walk the runway in Miu Miu&rsquo;s Fall/Winter 2024 show. &ldquo;Being used to show the clothes was sort of humbling, and I really don't like using that word,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;But suddenly, nobody cared about K.S.T.&mdash;they only cared about Miu Miu. It was one of the most liberating things I've ever done.&rdquo;

Dress LOUIS VUITTON Rings KRISTIN’S OWN Shoes BALENCIAGA

Other milestones on her highlight reel? &ldquo;I was in&nbsp;Mission Impossible, which is one of many pinch-me moments,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;And I can't get over the fact that people still talk to me about&nbsp;Four Weddings and a Funeral.&rdquo; Another memory of note stems from the 2014 London production of Sophocles&rsquo;s&nbsp;Electra. During a &ldquo;dreaded&rdquo; weekly matinee filled with inattentive local students, she looked to the balcony and saw a group of girls leaning over, completely rapt. &ldquo;I thought,&nbsp;My job is done,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure those kids will go back to the theater and think about how, over 2000 years ago, Sophocles understood what it felt like to be 14 and cross with your mother.&rdquo;
Intergenerational dynamics&mdash;more specifically, &ldquo;friendships between old and young people&rdquo;&mdash;are central to the stories Scott Thomas hopes to tell moving forward. &ldquo;One of the privileges of this job is that you can be working with a megastar who&rsquo;s 20 or a god-hero-icon who&rsquo;s 88,&rdquo; she says. One young actor who&rsquo;s already earned her admiration is&nbsp;Anora&nbsp;star Mikey Madison; Scott Thomas was so impressed by her Oscar-winning turn, she screened the film twice before championing the 26-year-old actor&rsquo;s performance on Instagram and wishing her luck in her career. &ldquo;To be honest, I don't do things like that very often,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;I'm not the sort of grandmother who goes around, giving out wisdom.&rdquo; She pauses and laughs. &ldquo;Not at all.&rdquo;&nbsp;
HAIR: Louis Byrne&nbsp;PREMIER HAIR AND MAKEUP&nbsp;
MAKEUP: Adam De Cruz&nbsp;ONE REPRESENTS&nbsp;
MANICURE: Claudine Cook
PHOTO ASSISTANT: Benny Johnson&nbsp;
STYLING ASSISTANT: Charlie Edwards

Kristin Scott Thomas Is Calling the Shots in 'My Mother's Wedding'

Tags

Recommended posts for you

Beauty

The November 2025 Beauty Edit: New Launches to Carry You Through Sale Season

Beauty

Dua Lipa’s New Skincare Line with Augustinus Bader: The Full Review

Film & TV

Everything We Know About 'The Summer I Turned Pretty' Movie

Shopping

12 Gifts That Will Show Your Host How Much You Really Care

Music

The Best Covers To Add To Your 2025 Christmas Playlist

Shopping

The Ultimate 2025 Luxury Coffee Table Book Gift Guide

Fashion

The Pantone Color Of The Year 2026 Is Finally Here

Fashion

Generation Gucci: See All Of The Looks From Gucci's Pre-Fall 2026 Collection