Scott Thomas’ parental lament

Kristin Scott Thomas learned about loss at a tender age—twice, said Louise France in the London Observer. When she was just 5, her father, a Royal Navy pilot, died in a plane crash. Her mother got married again, to another pilot. But six years later, just as young Kristin came to accept and love her stepfather, he, too, died in a plane crash. She was devastated, but remembers being cautioned not to cry. “This was before counseling,” the 47-year-old actress recalled. “You just didn’t discuss it. You just kept going and it was very tough.” She retreated into a fantasy world, and suspects that she decided to pursue acting as a way of spending as much time as possible in a realm of make-believe. “I was very lost as a teenager. I am sure that had I grown up with both parents, with a feeling of safety rather than danger, I would not be the way I am.” Because she knows what it’s like to lose a parent, she often feels great guilt about her acting career. Making movies requires her to spend a lot of time away from her three children. “I envy people who drop their kids off at school, go and sit in an office, and then go home again at 6 o’clock,” she says. “But I get to do a job I love and I get paid a fortune for it. Stop complaining!”