Guillory stated, "I became an actress because I wanted to experience what it felt like to be someone else." Because I may not like myself, and I subsequently stated that I despise acting. I kind of stumbled into it from the wrong direction...
I began acting when I was 16 when I was given a contract for $8,000, and my family had always relied on Family Support... She went on to claim that her dissatisfaction with later film jobs made her bitter, but she was motivated again after watching Helen Mirren onstage.
Guillory made her television debut in 1993, in a TV production of Jilly Cooper's Riders, for which the casting directors required a young actress who could ride a horse. Her method outperforms her a tiny part alongside Mira Sorvino in the miniseries The Buccaneers.
Guillory worked as a waitress at a club before becoming a model to finance her acting career. She spoke about the incident in a 2000 interview. Waitressing has definitely been the most beneficial thing I've done to support my acting career.
She studied acting at the New World School of the Arts and the Paris Conservatoire during her modeling career, and she appeared in small roles in films such as The Future Lasts a Long Time (1996), The Rules of Engagement (1999), Star! Star! (1999), Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) (2000), The 3 Kings (2000), and Two Days, Nine Lives (2000). (2000).
Guillory decided to continue her acting career during this time because she was terrified of returning to university and being around people her own age after being with that tiny little sect of girls in Norfolk whose fathers were farmers and politicians and who didn't trust me and didn't understand where I was coming from.
She made a comeback in the thriller Sorted, in which she had a larger part (2000). Guillory then went on to star in the BBC version of Kingsley Amis' novel Take a Girl Like You. She played Jenny Bunn, the story's virginal heroine, and received praise for her performance in the historical drama.
Guillory continued to work in primarily British films in 2001, with parts in Oblivious, Late Night Shopping (with spouse Enzo Cilenti), The Last Minute, and Superstition among others. Guillory starred opposite Guy Pearce and Jeremy Irons in the 2002 film The Time Machine.
After working on low-budget small films, she was excited to go on a larger project and compared the feeling to discovering a unicorn in your sock drawer. She portrayed Emma, Pearce's fiancee, who was slain early in the movie and whose death put in motion the main events.
Guillory claims she read The Principles of Lust's screenplay and couldn't put it down in 2003, and asked to read for the part when a friend gave it to her. Penny Woolcock's unorthodox approach to filming, which included using raw footage and spontaneous performances rather than preparing the performers, intrigued her.
Guillory was worried about performing naked in the film's sex sequences, which were recorded during the first week of production, for the character of Juliette. She subsequently stated that it was one of her most memorable performing experiences. Following that, Guillory had a tiny role in the romantic comedy Love, Actually before appearing in Helen of Troy, a television miniseries.
The mythical life of Helen is the subject of the series, which is based on Homer's epic poem Iliad. Helen of Troy was nominated for a Satellite Award for best miniseries.
Guillory was a lead in the ensemble cast of Eragon, the fantasy film version of Christopher Paolini's novel, in 2006; the role reunited her with The Time Machine co-star Jeremy Irons. She played the elven princess Arya Drttningu. Eragon was not well received by reviewers, however, it was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film in 2006.
The picture went on to make around $75 million in the United States and $173.9 million elsewhere, for a total of $249 million worldwide. Guillory was also approached about reprising her role as Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Extinction, the sequel to Resident Evil: Apocalypse, but she declined due to Eragon schedule issues.
In 2007, she starred in the Spanish film El Corazn de la Tierra, or The Heart of the Earth, and later that year, she concluded filming Victims, a horror/thriller, and Inkheart, a fantasy novel adaption. Resa is the wife of Brendan Fraser's role and the mother of Eliza Bennett's role in Inkheart.
Guillory appears in Inkheart with Helen Mirren, a family friend who served as a role model for her when she initially pursued acting. Guillory will star in the upcoming television series The Oaks, which is set to premiere in 2008.
She joins Bahar Soomekh, Matt Lanter, Romy Rosemont, Jeremy Renner, Michael Rispoli, and Shannon Lucio in the series, which follows the intertwined stories of three families: a young couple who has lost a child in 1968, a family of four in 1998, and a pregnant couple in 2008 who are all haunted by the same spirit in their home.
On November 5, 2007, the television series began production in Pasadena, California. Jessica, the 2008 couple's next-door neighbor, will be played by Guillory, a lady with Asperger syndrome who went to school with the husband (and father-to-be) and shares a secret with him.
In May 2010, Shock Till You Drop.com revealed Guillory's return as Jill Valentine in Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth installment in the Resident Evil film franchise. On May 31, Jovovich revealed that Guillory will reprise her role as Jill. In the film's mid-credit sequence, Guillory reappears.
In the following film, Resident Evil: Retribution, she reprises her leading role as the primary antagonist. Guillory and Cilenti raced five stages of the Tour de France in August 2004 to raise funds for charity.
