Slow Horses star Dame Kristin Scott Thomas has revealed her life is ‘fantastic’ since remarrying at the age of 64.
The BAFTA-winning actress secretly tied the knot with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait during an intimate ceremony with only close family and friends present last September.
Before finding her current beau however, Scott Thomas – known for her roles as Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Katharine in The English Patient – was previously married to French fertility specialist François Olivennes.
The star and her husband tied the knot in 1987 before basing their lives in Paris and bringing up their three children together.
But when the marriage ended after 17 years, Scott Thomas spoke of how she would likely stay single for the rest of her life because ‘all the men will run for the hills’ due to her peripatetic career.
There were brief relationships with The Crown actor Tobias Menzie and French tycoon Arpad Busson, but after nearly 20 years as a divorcee Scott Thomas took the decision to marry again – and it is one the star says she is more than relishing.
Speaking to The Times, the actress – now 65 – says her years of life experience have held her in good stead for second time around.
She said of her marriage: ‘I don’t know how to describe it without going mushy, but to have two hearts, two brains, two minds, two energies all striving for the same thing is fantastic.
Slow Horses star Dame Kristin Scott Thomas has revealed her life is ‘fantastic’ since remarrying at the age of 64 to Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait
The actress – currently starring in Slow Horses – says her years of life experience have held her in good stead for second time around
After her divorce, Scott Thomas said she believed she might stay single for years to come. Pictured: The actress in 2006
‘What you’re looking for when you’re in your fifties and sixties is very different from what you’re looking for in your twenties, when you want to make babies and you’ve got the dream of a family thing going on.
‘I’ve worked out what’s worth paying attention to and what the really important things in my life are and I’ve found someone who thinks the same things.’
Her joie de vivre and optimism is shades away from Scott Thomas’s previous views on finding love again.
In 2013, the actress candidly told the Sunday Telegraph that she believed she might stay single for years to come.
She said: ‘It’s incredibly difficult keeping relationships alive when you have a lifestyle like mine. I’m never more than a few weeks in one place.’
The actress went on to admit her personal life often suffers because of her career and said she used work as ‘an escapism thing’ when things got difficult at home.
She said: ‘If I’ve signed on to do something, then I have to do it properly. So I have to switch off the personal life. I can just about squeeze in a phone call at lunchtime, but anything else I just can’t deal with.
‘So it’s a bit of an escapism thing, actually. Things complicated at home? Get a job! Go off somewhere else and pretend I’m someone else.’
Scott Thomas was previously married to French fertility specialist François Olivennes
The BAFTA-winning actress is known for her roles as Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Katharine in The English Patient
Scott Thomas has seldom opened up about the ‘complicated’ moments in her life – but they would surely include the tragic death of her father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Thomas, in a dramatic fighter plane accident in 1966.
The actress was aged just five at the time.
She previously recalled that ‘Mummy was pregnant at the time and I can remember when she told us. In one breath it was, ‘Daddy has had an accident and won’t be coming home and I’m going to have a baby.’ So it sort of took the sting out of it’.
A previously declassified air investigation report revealed in 2015 that Lt Com Thomas was flying a Sea Vixen jet when it exploded after crashing into the sea off the Dorset coast as part of a training exercise.
In a dark twist of fate, Kristin’s widowed mother, Debroah, went on to marry another Fleet Air Arm pilot, Simon Idiens, who similarly died in an air accident in 1972.
And between her two husbands, Deborah had a brief relationship with a boyfriend who also tragically died in a flying accident.
For Scott Thomas however, life has taken a happier turn, with both her romantic life and career flourishing.
The British actress has returned to screens this week with the return of the popular Apple TV+ series Slow Horses.
Scott Thomas stars as MI5’s Diana Taverner alongside Sir Gary Oldman in series 5 of the BAFTA Award-winning spy drama.
Based on Mick Herron’s hugely popular book series, it was partly thanks to Scott Thomas’ husband that she agreed to take on the role in the first place.
The actress said she was intrigued by the role after Micklethwait’s friends told her they were huge fans of Herron’s books and described the author as a ‘genius’.
