STANDING on the red carpet in an elegant designer ballgown, this young actress is living proof that so-called “nepo babies” certainly do get ahead.
The 25-year-old attended the London premiere of the Hollywood blockbuster: The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, in which she has bagged a plum role.
But when your parents are two of Britain’s most famous actors, one of whom moved millions as the betrayed wife in Richard Curtis’s Christmas classic, Love Actually- the showbiz world is surely your oyster.
Meanwhile the actress’s father starred as the unforgettable rake Willoughby, the 1995 film, Sense and Sensibility, where he first met his wife and more recently the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing.
So can you guess who she is yet?
Yes it’s Gaia Wise, daughter of Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson and actor Greg Wise.
Young Gaia will voice the role of Princess Hera, daughter of Helm Hammerhand, The King of Rohan who is voiced by actor Brian Cox.
Gaia whose parents can boast one of the longest lasting unions in showbiz, having been together for more than 20 years, made her acting debut in the BBC series Silent Witness in 2022.
The actress played the university student Jo Reynolds, whose mother, the controversial health secretary, is assassinated, sparking the interest of forensic pathologists.
But despite being born into the gilded world of celebrity, Gaia life’s has not been without its challenges.
In 2021, she opened up to the Sun on Sunday about her three-year battle with anorexia, praising her parents for intervening with a lifesaving medical intervention.
The starlet developed the eating disorder aged just 16 and became so thin she couldn’t sit on a chair without being in pain.
Then later in 2017 she was admitted to rehab.
Speaking about the ordeal she said: ‘Anorexia makes you really good at gaslighting people, making it sound like they’re insane.”
“My parents would say, ‘Gaia, we heard you working out at 3am.’ And I’d say, ‘No you didn’t, it was just the house moving. I was asleep.”
And Gaia described how her parents, Greg and Emma, her brother Tindy and her best friend, gathered together to stage an intervention after Greg had said: “I don’t know where my child is anymore.”
She said: ‘I had to listen to the people I loved most in the world who, at the time, I’d really forgotten about, tell me what I was doing.’
Fortunately she has come through some tough times and is emerging as one of Britain’s brightest stars.
And with two of the country’s most celebrated performers in her corner, where she could she possibly go wrong?
Anorexia nervosa (often called anorexia) is an eating disorder and serious mental health condition.
People who have anorexia try to keep their weight as low as possible. They may do this in different ways, such as not eating enough food, exercising too much, taking laxatives or making themselves sick (vomit). This can make them very ill because they start to starve.
They often have a distorted image of their bodies, thinking they’re fat even when they’re underweight.
Men and women of any age can get anorexia, but it’s most common in young women and typically starts in the mid-teens.
