Her father is playwright John Mortimer, best known for his Rumpole of the Bailey series. Prior to becoming successful as an actress, Emily wrote the column for the Daily Telegraph, and was too film writer for an screen adaptation of Lorna Sage's novel, Bad Blood.

Mortimer exposed at St Paul's Girls' School, where she first developed an interest in acting, appearing in several student productions. When St. Paul's, she moved in to Lincoln College, Oxford, where she read Russian. Mortimer obtained period to perform inside many plays when researching at Oxford, and when acting withinside the student production she was spotted by the producer world health organization cast her within the supporting role in the television adaptation of Catherine Cookson's The Glass Virgwithin in 1995. Subsequent television roles involved ''Sharpe's Blade''. Her number 1 film role was paired Val Kilmer in 1996's a Ghost & the Darkness. Mortimer got the stronger role in the Irish coming-of-age story, The Survive of the High Kings, freed late a equivalent month, & within 1998, she played Miss Flynn in the TV mini-series Cider With Rosie, which was adapted for television by her father.

when well around 1998, Emily Mortimer appeared as Kat Ashley in the international hit Elizabeth, and inside 1999, she enjoyed three roles that raised her profile outside a U.K.: She was a ill-ill-starred "Perfect Girl" come by Hugh Grant in Notting Hill, appeared as Esther in the U.s. TV mini-series ''Noah's Ark, & was Angelinthe, a star of the film-inside-a-film, in the upscale slasher flick Scream 3''. Around 2000, Mortimer was cast as Katherine within Kenneth Branagh's ill-fated musical adaptation of ''Love's Labour's Lost, but the experience had a happy ending for her – she met actor Alessandro Nivola, and the two soon fell in love and have been together ever since. That equivalent month, Mortimer took inside her large role in an Our contries film up to now, swimming paired Bruce Willis in The Kid, & 2002 was another large season for her, by owning major roles within both major releases – The 51st State'', starring opposite Samuel L. Jackson, and a key supporting character in John Woo's war drama Windtalkers. Within 2004, she appeared in the movie Dear Frankie, and inside 2005, within Woody Allen's "Matchpoint", his number 1 film placed outside a U.S. Early Oscar-buzz suggests the nomination when Better Supporting Actress for her role within Allen's film.