| Tall, slim, and possessing impossibly large cheekbones, English actress
Saffron Burrows first came to the attention of international audiences
with her role in Circle of Friends (1995). Burrows, who had made her
screen debut two years earlier in Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the
Father, was cast as one of Minnie Driver's titular circle, an Irish girl
who makes the mistake of getting involved with an older, morally suspect
Englishman (Colin Firth). Thanks to the film's great success, Burrows
found herself steadily employed, though not always in films of great
quality. In 1999, she earned the label of "star on the rise"
thanks to leading roles in four different films. Two of these, Wing
Commander and Deep Blue Sea, were big-budget action films, while the
others were art-house dramas directed by Mike Figgis. The first, The Loss
of Sexual Innocence, cast Burrows as identical twins separated at birth,
while the second, Miss Julie, was an adaptation of August Strindberg's
play that featured Burrows as the title character, a wealthy young woman
who enters into a ruinous affair with a servant. |