Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress and model.. She first gained notice, while a student at Oxford University, for making her debut in the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Throughout the 1990s, she worked on both film and television, most notably by portraying the title character in the 1996 BBC television series Emma. She started film work in the United States in the late 1990s. She appeared in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Brokedown Palace (1999). In 2001, she g…