Called "one of the most beautiful women to come on screen in the last 10 years" by Kevin Costner, the dark-haired, British-born Olivia Williams burst out of relative obscurity to play Abby, an independent post-apocalyptic woman looking for a man to inseminate her, in Costner's "The Postman" (1997). Having trained for the stage at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Williams had been a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and toured the USA in a production of "Richard III", starring Ian McKellen. Her lone appearance before the cameras had been in British TV's "Jane Austin's 'Emma'" (1996),
