Childhood & Early Life
Felicity Rose Hadley Jones was born on 17 October 1983 in Birmingham. Her father, Gareth Jones, worked as a journalist, while her mother, Julia Hadley, was into print advertising. Her parents separated when she was three years old after which her brother and she were brought up by their mother in Bournville, West Midlands.
She attended Kings Norton Girls' School after which she studied at King Edward VI Handsworth School, to attain A-levels. After a gap-year she studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, and passed out with an upper second in 2006.
When Jones was a child, her mother often took her brother and her to movies and theatre which slowly developed her passion for acting. She started taking acting lessons at the age of 11 when she enrolled with a drama club at the Custard Factory.
While studying in college she participated in several dramas including ‘Attis’ in 2005 in which she played the title role. She also played a part in Shakespeare's ‘Comedy of Errors’ for the Oxford University Dramatic Society summer tour to Japan.
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Career
Felicity Jones made her acting debut in 1996 with the television family film ‘The Treasure Seekers’.
From 1998 to 1999, she appeared as Ethel Hallow in the British-Canadian television series ‘The Worst Witch’. She later reprised her role in the sequel ‘Weirdsister College’ in 2001.
In 2003, she bagged the role of Grace May in the BBC drama ‘Servants’. In the same year, she took on the role of Emma Grundy in the BBC Radio 4 soap opera ‘The Archers’. She went on the play the role until 2009.
She played the main role Catherine Morland in the ITV adaptation of Jane Austen's ‘Northanger Abbey’ in 2007. In the same year, she forayed into stage drama with Polly Stenham's ‘That Face at the Royal Court Theatre’.
In 2008, she made an appearance in the films ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and ‘Flashbacks of a Fool’. She featured in the episode ‘The Unicorn and the Wasp’ in the ‘Doctor Who’ series and played the role of Robina Redmond. In Enid Bagnold's ‘The Chalk Garden’ played at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London role, Jones was seen in the role of Laurel.
In the 2009 TV show ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ she played Anne Frank’s eldest sister, Margot Frank. Later that year in May, she appeared in a rehearsed reading of Anthony Minghella's ‘Hang Up’ which was played at the High Tide Festival.
In 2010, she was seen in the movie ‘Cemetry Junction’, ‘Soulboy’ and ‘The Tempest’.
In early 2011, Jones was seen in the romantic comedy, ‘Chalet Girl’ and received a lot of praise for her portrayal of a skateboarding champion. She had to undergo extensive training in skateboarding and also secretly worked in a chalet at St Anton to prepare for the role.
To be able to play her role in the play ‘Luise Miller’ convincingly, Jones lived with a Catholic family and attended Mass. The showed played at the Donmar Warehouse theatre in London, in June and July 2011. Later that year she was named the new face of Burberry and Dolce & Gabbana.
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In 2013, Jones gave her nod to ‘The Invisible Woman’ in which she played the role of Ellen Ternan. She then went on to play Felicia Hardy in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ which came out on 2 May 2014.
Felicity Jones gained tremendous popularity for her portrayal of Jane Wilde Hawking in the film ‘The Theory of Everything’ which released in 2014. The movie was based on the life of the renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and Jones played the role of his first wife. The real Jane Hawking was extremely impressed by Jones and even stated that she wondered if it was herself when watching Jones. The role won her several award nominations.
In February 2015, Felicity Jones portrayed the role of Jyn Erso in the Star Wars spin-off film, ‘Rogue One’. The film released in 2016 collected over $1 billion at the box office.
Jones then went on to play the role of Sienna Brooks in the 2016 film ‘Inferno’. In the movie, she played the role of a doctor who helps Robert Langdon in his escape.
Jones will next be seen in the 2018 film ‘On the Basis of Sex’ which is based on the life of United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Personal Life & Legacy
Felicity Jones was in a relationship with Internet artist, and sculptor, Ed Fornieles for around ten years after the couple first met at Oxford in 2003. After a 10 year long relationship, the couple broke-up in late 2014.
She started dating director Charles Guard in 2015 and the couple got engaged in 2017. On June 30, 2018, the couple got married in a private ceremony at Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds, Oxfordshire in England.
