Spotlight On: Gabrielle Anwar

Gabrielle Anwar has taken over television like a slow-moving fire storm.  Starting back when she first appeared in the short-lived series Hideaway, in 1986, she has since had an astounding career appearing in 13 television series, 12 television films and 27 theatrical films.  After making her debut in Hideaway, Gabrielle appeared in The Storyteller with John Hurt, Manifesto with Eric Stoltz and First Born with Charles Chance.  With such strong and inspiring actors to learn from and work with, Gabrielle began to take on the persona of a leading lady and in 1991 she landed her own starring film, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, which was quickly followed by the role for which she would be propelled into international stardom.

Gabrielle Anwar as Princess Margaret in The Tudors / Showtime

In Scent of a Woman, which starred Al Pacino and Chris O’Donnell, Gabrielle was known as the girl who danced the blind tango with Al Pacino.  The dance was breath-taking and suddenly everyone wanted to know “who’s that girl?”  From that point forward, she was a hot commodity and she never stood still. She appeared in Body Snatchers with Forrest Whitaker, For Love or Money with Michael J. Fox, The Three Musketeers with Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and Chris O’Donnell, Innocent Lies with Alexis Denisof, In Pursuit of Honor with Don Johnson and Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead with Andy Garcia – and that was just the next 2 years!

Over the next decade, her other notable films were My Little Assassin with Joe Mantegna and Robert Davi, How to Marry A Billionaire with John Stamos, Mysterious Island with Kyle MacLachlan and The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mines with Noah Wyle.

Having spent the majority of her career ping-ponging between films, when Gabrielle appeared as Princess Margaret in the television series The Tudors in 2007, she finally succumbed to the lure of a regular television role.  As King Henry VIII’s sister, Gabrielle’s natural beauty and steely core were a wicked combination; and the television audience was soon enraptured with the raven-haired vixen.

Gabrielle Anwar as Fiona on Burn Notice / USA Network

As her story-arc in The Tudors concluded, Gabrielle was quickly cast as the seemingly benign gun-runner Fiona in the USA Network espionage thriller series Burn Notice. It was a role that seemed unexpected for a woman as slight as Gabrielle, but as she soon demonstrated, brains trump brawn any day of the week.  She not only tracked down her former-lover and CIA counter-part Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan, she made it believable that she could play a cold-blooded gun runner.  Her knock-out good looks are employed well by the show and it works to dis-spell suspicion that her character is as devious and calculating as any spy.

And, as if her work on “Burn Notice” were not enough to keep her busy, Gabrielle spent her hiatus break working on two films, Warrior which co-stars Ashley Greene and Kellen Lutz, and The Family Tree which co-stars Christina Hendricks, Selma Blair and Dermot Mulroney.

Gabrielle’s versatility as an actor and inability to sit still has been a boon to both television and film audiences as she lights up both the small screen and the silver screen on a regular basis.  Gabrielle continues to draw in audiences from around the globe and we are all anxious to see what she has next up her sleeve.

Burn Notice airs Thursday nights at 10:00 p.m. on USA Network.