Kristin Scott Thomas has spoken candidly about the devastating grief she experienced as a child after losing both her father and stepfather in similar circumstances, describing the feeling as 'like the ceiling falling in.'
A Childhood Marked by Tragedy
The acclaimed star of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Slow Horses was only five years old when her father, Simon, a Royal Navy pilot, died while on duty in 1966 at the age of 31. Following his death, Scott Thomas's mother remarried another man named Simon, who was also a pilot in the Royal Navy. Tragically, history repeated itself, and he was killed six years later, leaving behind Scott Thomas and her three young siblings.
Reflecting on her grief, Scott Thomas told The Times: 'I’m the last generation of people who weren’t allowed to talk about it. Literally nothing. It was a shock, like the ceiling falling in. There was no idea of suffering before that. It just hit me and we were packed off to school. So my sadness got muddled up with different sadnesses.'
Reclaiming Her Story
Now 65, Scott Thomas is exploring her grief on her own terms in her directorial debut My Mother’s Wedding, in which she stars as the twice-widowed matriarch Diana, alongside Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, and Scarlett Johansson as her daughters. The film follows the bereaved family as Diana prepares for her third wedding.
Scott Thomas said: 'When you get to 60 it’s, like, “Get over it already.” The trouble is, I’ll always be that child with a tragic past, but I’m not that any more. So I wanted to reclaim my story by saying, “Bugger off! This is what I want to say about losing a parent as a child.”' The film is inspired by Richard Curtis and various French 'family dramas set in nice houses with people doing things behind bushes.'
A Revelation Through Motherhood
Scott Thomas, who has three grown-up children with her first husband, François Olivennes, said motherhood brought her closer to her own mother. 'It certainly made our relationship stronger,' she said. 'And when I saw a man, François, with his children, I realised it was something I’d never seen before. It was a revelation — I loved having small children. But I love even more having grown-up children. It’s the best.'
A Painful Public Revelation
Scott Thomas first shared the story of her family's deaths on French television in 1986 while promoting her debut film Under the Cherry Moon, which also starred Prince. When the talk show host asked what her father thought of her starring alongside the 'Purple Rain' singer, she replied: 'Well, I don’t know because he died when I was five and my stepfather died when I was eleven,' without considering the aftermath of making the story public. 'I wish I hadn’t said it, that I’d been better guided,' she said. 'But I was so angry and my way of lashing out was to put him in a tricky spot. The tone of his voice. It drove me mad.'
