Quick Facts
Biography
Rebecca Frayn is an English documentary film maker, screenwriter and novelist.
Career
Rebecca Frayn is a film maker, screen writer and novelist, inspired by contemporary issues. 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.
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 also appeared uncredited as the photograph image 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, a TV drama that tackled father's rights, starring Sophie Okonedo and Andrew Lincoln. Also, 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 also 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, directed by Luc Besson and starring Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis was awarded the Amnesty International Human Rights Film Award in 2011.
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 and explores the impact on a family when a child goes missing.
After making a short viral film in 2008 opposing the proposed expansion of London Heathrow Airport, 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. In 2012 she directed the Green Party's political broadcast.
Frayn is currently writing a screenplay for the BFI, Miss Behaviour that charts the Miss World demonstrations in 1970 and the birth of feminism.
Personal life
Frayn 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. Frayn's father is English entrepreneur Peter Rimmer.
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 |
As actress
| Year | Film | Role | Director |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1979 | One Fine Day | June | Stephen Frears |
| 2003 | Love Actually | Joanna (photo image) | Richard Curtis |