Gemma Christina Arterton (born 2 February 1986) is an English actress and producer. After her stage debut in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost at the Globe Theatre (2007), Arterton made her feature film debut in the comedy St Trinian's (2007). She portrayed Bond Girl Strawberry Fields in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008), a performance which won her an Empire Award for Best Newcomer.
Arterton has since appeared in a number of films, including The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009), Tamara Drewe (2010), Clash of the Titans (2010), Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), Their Finest (2016), The Escape (2017), and Vita and Virginia (2018). She received the Harper's Bazaar Woman of the Year Award for acting in and producing The Escape. Her theatrical highlights have included starring in The Duchess of Malfi (2014), Made in Dagenham (2014), Nell Gwynn (2016) and Saint Joan (2017). Arterton was nominated for Olivier Awards for her work on both Nell Gwynn and Made in Dagenham, and she won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for the latter.
Since 2016, Arterton has run her own production company, Rebel Park Productions, which focuses on creating female-led content in front of and behind the camera. She has executive-produced four feature films and two short films. She is also on record as being a supporter of the Time's Up, ERA 50:50 and MeToo movements. Arterton played an integral role in persuading actresses to wear black at the 2018 BAFTAs in support of Time'sUp, and has been involved with ERA 50:50, an equal pay campaign in the UK, since its inception.
Early life and education
Arterton was born at North Kent Hospital in Gravesend with polydactyly, a condition resulting in extra fingers which a doctor removed shortly after her birth. Her mother, Sally-Anne Heap, runs a cleaning business, and her father, Barry J. Arterton, is a welder. They divorced during Arterton's early childhood, and she grew up on a council estate with her mother and younger sister, Hannah Arterton, who is also an actress. Her matrilineal great-grandmother was a German-Jewish concert violinist.
Arterton attended Gravesend Grammar School for Girls, a state grammar school in Kent (now Mayfield Grammar School) and made her amateur stage debut in a production of Alan Ayckbourn's The Boy Who Fell into a Book. Her performance won her the best actress prize in a competition at a local festival.
At age 16, Arterton left Gravesend Grammar School to attend acting college at the Miskin Theatre at North Kent College in Dartford. She later studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), graduating in 2008.
