Embeth Jean Davidtz was born August 11, 1965 in Lafayette, Indiana. When she was still young, the family moved to Trenton, New Jersey first before settling to their native home in South Africa. Davidtz had to study the Afrikaans language before she was able to attend classes. She graduated from Glen High School in 1983 and was a cum laude at the Rhodes University, where she took up Drama & English Literature.
Her career in acting began at the age of 21 when she starred in the stage production of
Romeo & Juliet and got good reviews. Davidtz was part of other theater productions namely
Stille Nag (Silent Night) and
A Chain of Voices. Her performance on both plays earned her a nomination at the South African version of Tony Award. After landing on roles for South African films and TV shows, she eventually moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the entertainment industry.
Her first American film was
Army of Darkness, where she played the role of Shiela. Her work on the thriller movie
Deadly Matrimony impressed Steven Spielberg so much that he chose her to play Helen Hirsch in the Oscar winning film
Schindler's List. Among her other big screen projects are
Murder in the First, Matilda, Bicentennial Man, 13 Ghosts, Bridget Jones Diary and
Winged Creatures to name a few. Some of her notable TV appearances were on
Scrubs, Citizen Baines and
Grey's Anatomy.
She was featured in South African magazine
DEKAT, UK magazines
Empire and
Evening Standard Hot Tickets and in US magazines
Vanity Fair, Madison and
Movieline. Davidtz is married to lawyer Jason Sloane; they have two children namely Charlotte Emily and Asher Dylan.
Amy is played by
Embeth Davidtz on the HBO drama
In Treatment. For five years, Amy struggled with infertility until she gave up…only to find out that she's finally pregnant. Her career, where she has excelled at, is the main reason why she's now uncertain of being a mother and this makes her husband Jake mad.
(Photo courtesy of HBO)