Name: Jane Goldman Date of Birth: 11 June 1970 Place of birth: Hammersmith, London, UK Special moves: Writing, ghost-hunting, being Jonathan Ross’ wife Films include: Stardust, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, The Woman In Black

What you probably already know:

Jane Goldman has an extraordinarily multifaceted public persona. Unfortunately for feminism, she’s probably best known as the buxom and flame-haired consort of telly king Jonathan Ross, and can regularly be spotted on his arm like some sort of cyberpunk princess who’s wandered into a production of The Three Musketeers. However, that’s certainly not all there is to Goldman – she’s also a prolific and successful screenwriter, whose biggest projects include Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust and the phenomenally well received Kick-Ass, which she co-wrote with director Matthew Vaughn based on Mark Millar’s graphic novel.

Continuing to channel her interest in comics into her work, Goldman’s name will next be seen in lights when Marvel prequel X-Men: First Class hits cinemas later this year. She’s also injected variety into her CV by working on The Debt, a remake of a 2007 Israeli film which stars Helen Mirren, Ciarán Hinds and Tom Wilkinson as retired Mossad agents who return to active service to carry out a long-overdue Nazi assassination. Add to that her first sole writing credit for The Woman In Black, a new adaptation of Susan Hill’s famously terrifying novel (which stars Daniel Radcliffe in his début post-Potter role) and all of a sudden things are looking pretty motherflipping impressive…

What you might not know:

Before making it big as a screenwriter, Jane Goldman dabbled in pretty much every other wordy career we can think of; she’s written pop reviews for The Daily Star, articles for a gaming magazine, books about The X-Files, scripts for David Baddiel’s short-lived sitcom and columns for Total Guitar (despite not being able to play the guitar when she started writing them). She’s been a lingerie model, she collects deeply weird shit (the skeleton of a two-headed baby, anyone?), she keeps ferrets and she’s a self-confessed World of Warcraft addict. Oh, and she’s a paranormal investigator.

Oh yes. In her TV series Jane Goldman Investigates, Goldman delved deep into the occult to present her findings on subjects as diverse as voodoo curses, rune reading, dowsing, tarot and poltergeists. We genuinely can’t think of any interesting things that she has yet to do, except possibly fight a bear or learn to transmute base metals into gold – and she’ll probably get round to them soon enough. Her screenplays are consistently innovative, witty and unexpected, her hair cannot be viewed with the naked eye and her personal life looks utterly fucking awesome from where we’re sitting; we aren’t going to lie, we’re a bit awestruck.

Jane Goldman quote:

“One thing that kept coming up in our conversations is how young Hit Girl is. But it’s precisely her age that makes her such a fascinating character. For me, as a female screenwriter, I found the idea absolutely exhilarating: Here is a strong, female anti-hero, but she’s not sexualized…”

What to say at a dinner party:

“After four collaborations with male screenwriters, The Woman In Black should give Goldman her biggest opportunity yet to upend cinematic norms just as she did with Kick-Ass; it’ll be particularly interesting to see what she does with the essentially piteous character of Jennet.”

What not to say at a dinner party:

“Do you think her tits are haunted?”

Final thought:

She’ll be back for Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall. We’re psyched.

You can also check out Mookychick’s Feminist Icon article on Jane to see if we agreed with them…

Anything else you think the world should know? Drop us a comment below!