Lesley Manville

Lesley is a multi-award-winning stage, film and television actress, known for her Tony award-winning performance for Jocasta in Oedipus on Broadway, Emmy and BAFTA-nominated role as Princess Margaret in The Crown and her Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s film Phantom Thread.

Her recent theatre work includes her role in Oedipus on Broadway. She won both an Olivier and Critics’ Circle Award for Best Actress in the West End last year for the London Wyndham’s Theatre run in 2025, in Robert Icke’s acclaimed adaptation. Lesley has just completed an on-stage run of Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre in London.

Other big screen roles include Mrs Harris Goes To Paris, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. Upcoming roles include Jack of Spades (2027) and Winter of the Crow (summer 2026). For Television, she will reprise her role as Susan Ryeland in the third and final instalment of Antony Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland Murder trilogy, called Marble Hall Murders, as well as her BAFTA-nominated role in the BBC’s award-winning Sherwood for a third season.

Lesley has worked extensively with director Mike Leigh. Most notably on Another Year, for which she won the prestigious NBR Best Actress Award, a Critics’ Circle Award and received BAFTA and BIFA nominations. Other films with Mike Leigh are All Or Nothing (Critics Circle Best Actress Award), Topsy-Turvy, Mr Turner, High Hopes,

Secret and Lies, Vera Drake and Grown Ups. Other films include Back To Black, The Critic, Ordinary Love, Let Him Go, Misbehaviour and both Maleficent films.

Amongst Lesley’s extensive television career, Lesley also starred in the BBC’s Mum, winning her an RTS Comedy Performance Award and 2 BAFTA nominations. Other TV includes Citadel, Magpie Murders, I Am Maria, Harlots, Save Me Too, Talking Heads, World on Fire, North and South, Cranford and Other People’s Children and Bodily Harm, receiving RTS Best Actress nominations for both. TV roles yet to be released include Moonflower Murders and the second instalment of Citadel for Amazon.

Theatre credits include: Ghosts (Almeida, West End and BAM New York) for which she won a Best Actress Olivier Award and Critics Circle Award. She also received Best Actress Olivier nominations for Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bristol Old Vic, Wyndham’s, BAM New York and LA) and Grief (National Theatre). Other recent theatre includes The Visit at the National Theatre and Talking Heads at The Bridge.

Lesley was appointed an OBE in 2015 and promoted to CBE in 2021.