When British actress Ruth Wilson won the best actress prize for a TV drama at Sunday’s Golden Globes ceremony in Beverly Hills, most viewers probably didn’t know who she was.
Competing against stars such as Julianna Margulies (“The Good Wife”) and Viola Davis (“How To Get Away With Murder”), she was certainly the dark horse in the race.
But in our minds, she was always going to win because she deserved it.
In “The Affair,” Wilson, 32, plays melancholic Montauk waitress Alison Bailey, whose grief over the death of her son Gabriel and the dissolution of her marriage drives her into the arms of Brooklyn novelist and public school teacher Noah Solloway (Dominic West).
Wilson’s performance is so subtle, fresh and, at times, agonizing that she makes everyone else in her category look like they were merely acting (or overacting).
She arrived in New York to film “The Affair” with a starry theater résumé (indeed, she is currently starring in the Broadway drama “Constellations” with Jake Gyllenhaal, with whom she has been romantically linked). Wilson won two Olivier awards for her stage work in the UK and also was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the miniseries “Jane Eyre” in 2006.
Switching gears, Wilson played sociopath Alice Morgan on the British crime drama “Luther.” Her chilling portrayal made her a cult favorite.
Her next film is in the Weinstein release “Suite Française,” scheduled for November. She co-stars with Kristin Scott Thomas and Michelle Williams in the WWII love story based on the novel by Irène Némirovsky.