Rebecca Frayn

Rebecca Frayn is an English documentary film maker, screenwriter, novelist and actress.

Rebecca Frayn
Occupation(s)filmmaker
screen writer
novelist
actress
Years active1979–present
SpouseAndy Harries (1992–present)
ChildrenFinn Harries, Jack Harries, Emmy Lou Harries.

Career

Rebecca Frayn is a film maker and screenwriter. She has directed a wide variety of quirky documentary essays for the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV on subjects that range from Tory Wives to the Friern Barnet Mental Asylum and identical twins.[1]

She played the role of June in the 1979 TV movie One Fine Day, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Robert Stephens and Dominic Guard. She appeared uncredited as the photograph image by Denis O'Regan of Liam Neeson's character's dead wife, Joanna, in the film Love Actually (2003), directed by Richard Curtis.

She made her drama debut as a director with Whose Baby? for ITV,[2] a TV drama that tackled father's rights, starring Sophie Okonedo and Andrew Lincoln. A screenplay she wrote for the BBC, Killing Me Softly explored the true story of Sara Thornton, whose conviction for murder helped bring about a reform of the law on domestic violence. She has written and/or directed a number of films about prominent women, including Leni Riefenstahl, Annie Leibovitz and Nora Ephron. Her screenplay about Aung San Suu Kyi, The Lady,[3] directed by Luc Besson and starring Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis was awarded the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Award in 2011.[4]

Her first novel, One Life, dealt with the complex emotional and ethical landscape of IVF. Her second novel, Deceptions, is a psychological thriller, inspired by a true story; it explores the impact on a family when a child goes missing.

After making a short film in 2008 opposing the proposed expansion of London Heathrow Airport,[5] Frayn co-founded We CAN, a group who lobbied the government to take action on climate change in the run up to the 2010 Copenhagen Conference.[6]

Frayn wrote the screenplay for the 2020 film Misbehaviour, that deals with the controversy surrounding the 1970 Miss World competition, and the birth of feminism.[7]

Personal life

The daughter of playwright and novelist Michael Frayn and his first wife, Gillian (née Palmer),[8][9][10] Frayn grew up in North West England. She graduated from the University of Bristol in 1984. She married film producer Andy Harries in July 1992 and they have three children: twin sons, Jack Harries and Finn Harries, and a daughter Emmy. Frayn had to undergo IVF to have her daughter, an experience which inspired her novel One Life.[11] She has served as chair of Turnham Green Friends, a group that helps to care for the park of that name in Chiswick.[12]

Credits

As novelist
Year Name Publisher
2006 One Life Simon & Schuster
2010 Deceptions Simon & Schuster

As drama director
Year Film Broadcaster
2003 Single – Episodes 1 to 3 of 6 Tiger Aspect for ITV1
2004 Whose Baby? Granada ITV1

As documentary director
Year Film Broadcaster
1991 The Ghosts of Oxford Street Channel 4 / Middlemarch Films
1993 Annie Leibovitz – South Bank Show ITV / Middlemarch Films
1995 Talk Radio – Naked News Channel 4 / Oxford TV
1995 Nora Ephron – South Bank Show LWT / Middlemarch Films
1995 Tory Wives – Modern Times BBC 2 / Middlemarch Films
1997 Identical Twins – Cutting Edge Channel 4 / Middlemarch Films
1998 Bare – Modern Times BBC 2 / Middlemarch Films
1999 Asylum – Cutting Edge Channel 4 / Compulsive Viewing
2000 Space X3 episodes BBC 2 / Middlemarch Films
2003 The World According To Parr – Imagine BBC One

As documentary producer
Year Film Broadcaster
1993 The Wonderful Horrible World of Leni Riefenstahl – Without Walls Special Channel 4 / Middlemarch and Omega Films
1999 Upstarts x 3 episodes Channel 4 / Middlemarch Films

As screen writer
Year Film Broadcaster Director
1991 The Last Laugh He Play/She Play Channel 4/ Middlemarch Films Betsan Morris Evans
1991 The Ghosts of Oxford Street Channel 4 / Middlemarch Films Rebecca Frayn and Malcolm McLaren
1996 Killing Me Softly – Screen on One BBC Two/Middlemarch Films Stephen Wittaker
2011 The Lady Europacorp and Left Bank Pictures Luc Besson
2020 Misbehaviour Pathé and Left Bank Pictures Philippa Lowthorpe

As actress
Year Film Role Director
1979 One Fine Day June Stephen Frears
2003 Love Actually Joanna (photo image) Richard Curtis

References
  1. "Rebecca Frayn – Profile". The Guardian. 12 January 2009. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  2. "Rebecca Frayn – Film maker, screenwriter and novelist". Intelligence Squared. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 5 November 2012.
  3. Frayn, Rebecca (11 December 2011). "The untold story of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi". The Daily Telegraph.
  4. "Human Rights Film Award for Aung San Suu Kyi". Human Rights Film Network. Retrieved 26 November 2021. At the Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin the International Human Rights Film Award has been presented to Aung San Suu Kyi, portrayed in Luc Besson's film The Lady.
  5. Topham, Laurence; Frayn, Rebecca (13 January 2009). "Heathrow picnic and protest". The Guardian.
  6. Frayn, Rebecca (12 January 2009). "How I became an eco-warrior". The Guardian.
  7. Brew, Simon (20 December 2019). "Misbehaviour: first trailer for a must-see 2020 movie". Film Stories. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  8. Brandreth, Gyles (27 June 2002). "A closed book opens".
  9. "The ultimate twinset: Jack and Finn Harries!". 5 March 2013.
  10. Rainey, Sarah (14 September 2012). "YouTube videos funded our gap year travels".
  11. Frayn, Rebecca (30 August 2009). "Rebecca Frayn: I just wanted a baby". The Independent.
  12. Osborne, Bridget (24 November 2020). "Rebecca Frayn re-elected as Chair of Turnham Green Friends". Chiswick Calendar. Retrieved 26 November 2021.
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