Katrin Cartlidge, who has died aged 41, was one of the most fearless and passionately committed performers on screen and stage to have emerged from Britain for years. From her first appearance as Lucy Collins in television's Brookside, through 25 films and many stage appearances, her career was remarkable.
Following roles in Eat the Rich and Sacred Hearts in the late 1980s, her career took off with her appearance as Louise's roommate Sophie in Mike Leigh's film Naked (1993), which was the beginning of a profound collaboration with Leigh. This was recognised when she won best cinema actress in the Evening Standard Awards for her inventive creation in his film Career Girls (1997). As her career progressed, the range of work available to her was enormous. But it was her choice of the work that demonstrated her unique qualities. She worked for the Danish director Lars Von Trier in Breaking The Waves (1996), when few in Britain knew about his films. She worked with the unknown Macedonian director Milcho Manchevsky in the Oscar-nominated Before The Rain (1994), which won the Golden Lion in Venice that year.
In No Man's Land (2001), the first film of Bosnian director Panis Tanovic, she played a justice-seeking journalist; the film won numerous prizes, chief of which was the 2002 Best Foreign Film Oscar. For Lodge Kerrigan in New York, she played an Irish immigrant working as a call girl in Clare Dolan (1998). Most recently, she played in the Johnny Depp film, From Hell, and starred in a mini TV series Crime and Punishement.
As a result of her instinctive good taste, her opinion was constantly sought; she was asked to be on the jury of film festivals, and asked for advice by first-time directors. Even hardened producers would seek her out for her take on the viability of a project. She was unafraid of saying what she believed in, of making herself heard in an art form that too often - and, she believed, to its detriment - was cued by money and celebrity. Her interest was in the redemptive power of art and her own art was inspired by a knowledge of sculptors, poets and musicians, as well as film-makers.
Cartlidge was born in London in 1961 of partly Jewish descent - her mother left Central Europe in 1938 - and was educated at Parliament Hill School in Hampstead.
At the beginning of her career in the 1980s, she did hundreds of readings at the Royal Court, and was picked by Peter Gill to perform at the National Theatre in Apart From George, by writer and director Nick Ward. She had started her career as a dresser for Jill Bennet in the number one dressing room at the Royal Court, which she herself most recently occupied when appearing in Boy Meets Girl.
Her stage work seems to have been overshadowed by her films, but from her first appearance, naked, at the Riverside Studios in the 1980s to her last performance at the Royal Court in 2001, her stage performances were characterised by quiet integrity and total commitment.
She believed profoundly in social justice and political reform, was scathing of elitism and was a furious opponent of the political status quo throughout the world.
Katrin Cartlidge, actress, born May 15th, 1961; died September 7th, 2002