Katrin Cartlidge, 41, Actress Known for Offbeat Roles, Is Dead

"Sad. Saw her in 'Naked' and 'Breaking the Waves.'" Katrin Cartlidge, 41, Actress Known for Offbeat Roles, Is Dead September 11, 2002 By MEL GUSSOW Katrin Cartlidge, a British actress celebrated for the boldness of her performances in films by Mike Leigh and other independent directors, died on Saturday in London. She was 41 and lived in London. The Associated Press reported that she died of septicemia resulting from pneumonia. But that cause was not confirmed. Ms. Cartlidge had entered a hospital with "flulike symptoms," said a representative of the actress's agent. Ms. Cartlidge also had a flourishing stage career, and played a leading role in "Mnemonic," Simon McBurney's production for the Theatre de Complicite, which had a long run off Broadway last year. In that ensemble play, she acted opposite Mr. McBurney as a woman searching the world for a father she never knew. Writing in The Guardian this week, Mr. McBurney said that Ms. Cartlidge was "the play's motor and its energizer" and added that she was "one of the brightest, innovative, fearless and most passionately committed performers on screen and stage to have emerged from Britain for many years." Her breakthrough came in films, beginning in 1993 with Mr. Leigh's "Naked," in which she played the druggie Sophie opposite David Thewlis's drifter. In 1997 she starred as Hannah, a cheeky hell-raiser, in Mr. Leigh's "Career Girls" (about two college roommates who renew their relationship many years later). For "Career Girls," she won an Evening Standard award as best actress. Through her work with Mr. Leigh and others, by 2000 she had become internationally prominent. She specialized in playing offbeat, unglamorous roles and never seemed daunted even when they bordered on the outrageous. She had featured roles in Milcho Manchevski's "Before the Rain," Lars von Trier's "Breaking the Waves" (as Emily Watson's sister-in-law) and Lodge Kerrigan's "Claire Dolan" (as an Irish immigrant who becomes a prostitute in New York). In Danis Tanovic's "No Man's Land," which won an Academy Award this year as best foreign film, she played a cold, ambitious battlefield journalist. "I think it's wonderful that women can start playing characters with more than a couple of sides, some of them not pleasant," she said. "Audiences are not used to seeing characters like Hannah or Sophie, who are not trying to get us to fall in love with them. But why do we always have to fall in love with our leading ladies? Why can't we be just intrigued or puzzled or horrified or amused?" Ms. Cartlidge was born in London. She began her stage career in fringe theaters, but soon moved on to the Royal National Theater and other major companies, and continued to act onstage after her film career took flight. After "Mnemonic," she starred in London in the Royal Court production of Rebecca Gilman's "Boy Gets Girl," as a woman pursued by a stalker. She is survived by her parents, Bobbi and Derek, of London; a brother, Tony, of California; a sister, Michele, of Cornwall; and her partner, Peter Gevisser. In an interview in The New York Times in 1997 she spoke about her character in "Career Girls," a film "about a couple of women who get older." She said: "I actually love getting older. I hated my 20's; I couldn't wait to be 30. I'm really looking forward to turning 40, if I get there. And not just because things are more successful now, but because I think the older you get, the more you find life interesting apart from your own problems." And, with a wave of her hand, she added: "So roll on. I can't wait." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/11/obituaries/11CART.html?ex=1032801842&ei=1&en=8d28be5f09f01d5d