It's fantastic being a Fox!

Hailing from one of Britain's most distinguished acting dynasties, Silent Witness star Emilia was concerned about accusations of nepotism. Now 50 and in a reflective mood, she's happy to have followed her parents into the family business

- By Emmanuella Ngimbi

IT WAS at the age of 18 while studying for an English degree at university that Emilia Fox landed her first acting role in the BBC drama Pride and Prejudice.

But despite hailing from a lineage of acclaimed actors, including her parents, Edward Fox and Joanna David, she harboured doubts about whether the profession was her true calling.

“I thought, ‘I'll just go with the flow’ and I sure did go with the flow — even when I got my first job acting, I didn’t plan to be an actor at all,” laughs the Silent Witness star, a firm fixture on our screens ever since.

“I didn’t want to be an actor because lots of my family had gone into this profession, and I thought, ‘I don’t want to do the same as them, I want to do my own thing. I might become a teacher or a journalist.”

Although she “really loved” studying English, Emilia admits she “wasn’t quite sure what to do”, so she began waitressing during the holidays, a decision her parents encouraged.

“My mum and dad always said, ‘You’ve got to go and work in the holidays to make your own money to spend,” she says. “But I was a really terrible waitress.”

Having turned 50 last year, Emilia is in a pensive mood about her achievements, especially when it comes to her incredible family — of whom there are many.

Her great-great-grandfather Samson Fox was the first in his lineage to break free of being an industrial worker, as she discovered during filming of a 2011 episode of the BBC’s popular genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?

“He was a great lover of the arts in all areas, music, theatre, and had a theatre built in Harrogate,” she says.