A United Kingdom of Actresses - Part 1, England

1. Emily O'Brien

Emily O'Brien was born in Bedfordshire, England. Her mother is Persian and Emily speaks Farsi fluently. She is a three-time Daytime Emmy-nominated actress and writer, known for portraying the voice of The Woman in David Fincher's: Love Death and Robots in The Witness, her five-year series regular ...

Bedfordshire

2. Kate Winslet

Actress | Titanic

Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut...

Berkshire. Honourable mentions to Geraldine James and Geraldine McEwan.

3. Claire Foy

Actress | First Man

Claire Elizabeth Foy (born 16 April 1984) is an English actress. She studied acting at the Liverpool John Moores University and the Oxford School of Drama and made her screen debut in the pilot of the supernatural comedy series Being Human, in 2008. Following her professional stage debut at the ...

Buckinghamshire.

4. Rebecca Mader

Actress | The Devil Wears Prada

Rebecca Mader was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England as Rebecca Leigh Mader. She is an actress and writer, known for The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Iron Man Three (2013), Once Upon A Time (2014-2018) and Lost (2008-2010). She has been married to Marcus Kayne since November 23, 2016. She was ...

Cambridgeshire. Honourable mention to Olivia Newton-John.

5. Polly Walker

Actress | Rome

Polly Alexandra Walker was born on May 19, 1966 in Warrington, Cheshire, England. She graduated from Ballet Rambert School in Twickenham, began her career as a dancer, but an injury at age 18 forced her to change direction. She started at London's Drama Centre to the Royal Shakespeare Company, ...

Cheshire. Honourable mentions to Wendy Hiller, Glenda Jackson, Patricia Routledge and Barbara Steele.

6. Kristin Scott Thomas

Actress | Gosford Park

The acclaimed Cornish actress Dame Kristin Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, to Deborah (Hurlbatt) and Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas. Her father was a pilot for the British Royal Navy and died in a flying accident in 1964. Her stepfather, Lt. Cdr Simon Idiens, was also a pilot, ...

Cornwall.

7. Emma Cleasby

Actress | Dog Soldiers

Emma Cleasby was born in Cumbria, England, UK. She is known for Dog Soldiers (2002), Doomsday (2008) and Inspector Lewis (2006).

Cumberland.

8. Lauren Socha

Actress | Misfits

Lauren Marie Socha is an actress, known for her role in Misfits (2009).

She born June 9, 1990, in Derby, Derbyshire, England, to Kathleen (Lyons) and Robert Socha, and has Polish, English, Irish, and Italian ancestry. In 2010, Socha starred alongside Tim McInnerny in the short film Missing. She also...

Derbyshire. Honourable mention to Suzy Kendall.

9. Pauline Collins

Actress | Shirley Valentine

Collins entered motion pictures as a stripper in the exploitation film, Secrets of a Windmill Girl (1966), and television, as a maid in the British drama series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971). In 1988, she starred in the one-woman play 'Shirley Valentine' in London, and soon after, brought the role to...

Devon.

10. Serena Scott Thomas

Actress | Inherent Vice

Serena Scott Thomas was born on September 21, 1961 in Nether Compton, Dorset, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Inherent Vice (2014), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Hostage (2005). She was previously married to Scott J. Tepper.

Dorset. Honourable mention to Jayne Atkinson.

11. Cathy Brown

Actress | Intergalactic Combat

Cathy is a combat performance artist and is a specialist in movement/psychological choreography. She has spent 16 years in the martial art and professional boxing industry as a fighter of which she was ranked number 3 in the World and held both English and European title and a professional boxing ...

Durham. Honourable mentions to Wendy Craig and Flora Robson.

12. Maggie Smith

Actress | Gosford Park

One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor ...

Essex. Honourable mentions to Vicki Michelle, Sarah Miles, Anna Neagle, Hermione Norris, Tamzin Outhwaite, Joan Sims, Juliet Stevenson and Amanda Tapping.

13. Millie Midwinter-Lean

Actress | Panic Button

Millie Katharine Midwinter-Lean was born on 18th August 1995 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. She started performing aged 6 with the Everyman Youth Theatre and secured her 1st role shortly afterwards in the 2002 production of The Magician's Nephew.

Her mother enrolled her with an agency at 12 in ...

Gloucestershire. Honourable mention to Gabrielle Glaister.

14. Holly Aird

Actress | Waking the Dead

Holly Aird was born in Aldershot, Hampshire on the 18th May, 1969. She showed a huge interest in ballet so she started to attend a local dance school. At the age of nine, young Holly was picked out by a casting director to star in The History of Mr. Polly (1980).

Her first acting appearance went ...

Hampshire. Honourable mentions to Juliet Aubrey, Kirsty Dillon, Amanda Holden, Elizabeth Hurley and Catherine McCormack.

15. Beryl Reid

Actress | The Killing of Sister George

Beryl Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents and grew up in industrial Manchester, England. She left home at the age of 16 to go and work in a shop. She lasted 6 weeks. She applied for and was accepted in a revue in the Summer season in Bridlington. She had no formal training but joined the ...

Herefordshire.

16. Esmé Bianco

Actress | Game of Thrones

British-born Esmé Bianco is an internationally-acclaimed actress and performer, best-known for her role as "Ros" in the Emmy Award-winning show, Game of Thrones (2011).

Degree-educated in Drama and Theatre Arts at London's Goldsmiths University; Bianco's acting career started with performances in ...

Hertfordshire. Honourable mentions to Stephanie Beacham, Helen Grace and Frances de la Tour.

17. Rula Lenska

Actress | Royal Flash

Rula Lenska was born on September 30, 1947 in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Royal Flash (1975), Queen Kong (1976) and Seven Dials Mystery (1981). She was previously married to Dennis Waterman and Brian Deacon.

Huntingdonshire.

18. Naomi Watts

Actress | Mulholland Dr.

Naomi Ellen Watts was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, England to Myfanwy Edwards "Miv" (Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume/set designer, and Peter Watts (Peter Anthony Watts), Pink Floyd's road manager. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh. Her father died when she was seven and she ...

Kent. Honourable mentions to Brenda Blethyn and Hatti Jacques.

19. Miranda Richardson

Actress | The Crying Game

Miranda Richardson was born in Southport, Lancashire, England on March 3, 1958, to Marian Georgina (Townsend) and William Alan Richardson, a marketing executive. She has one sister, eight years her senior. Her parents and sister are not involved in the performing arts. At an early age she performed...

Lancashire. Honourable mentions to Kate Ashfield, Dora Bryan, Shirley Anne Field, Thora Hird, Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Stephenson.

20. Parminder Nagra

Actress | Bend It Like Beckham

Parminder Nagra was born in Leicester, Leicestershire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Bend It Like Beckham (2002), ER (1994) and The Blacklist (2013). She was previously married to James Stenson.

Leicestershire. Honourable mentions to Kate O'Mara and Josette Simon.

21. Joan Plowright

Actress | The Spiderwick Chronicles

Dame Joan Ann Plowright, the Baroness Olivier, is one of the most distinguished actors of her generation. She may be best remembered as the third wife and widow of Laurence Olivier, generally considered the greatest anglophone actor of the 20th Century, but she had a distinguished career of her own...

Lincolnshire. Honourable mentions to Patricia Hodge, Jennifer Saunders and Sybil Thorndike.

22. Jane Seymour

Actress | Somewhere in Time

Jane Seymour was born as Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg in 1951 in Middlesex, England, to a nurse mother and gynaecologist/obstetrician father. She is of Polish Jewish (father) and Dutch (mother) descent. She adopted the acting name of "Jane Seymour" when she entered show business as it was ...

Middlesex. Honourable mentions to Gabrielle Anwar and Keira Knightley.

23. Miranda Raison

Actress | My Week with Marilyn

Miranda grew up in Burnham Thorpe on the North Norfolk coast and trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Her father, Nick, is a jazz pianist and her mother, Caroline, read the news for Anglia television. In 2011, she played the title role in 'Anne Boleyn' at Shakespeare's Globe ...

Norfolk. Honourable mentions to Ruth Madoc and Hannah Spearritt.

24. Judy Carne

Actress | Laugh-In

Trained in music and dance, tiny-framed, pixie-like Judy Carne was born Joyce Botterill in Northampton, England on April 27, 1939, the daughter of a grocer. Trained in dance, she appeared in music revues as a teenager and changed her name at the advice of a dance teacher.

Slowly building up a career...

Northamptonshire. Honourable mentions to Joan Hickson and Nanette Newman.

25. Imogen Stubbs

Actress | Sense and Sensibility

Imogen Stubbs was born in Rothbury, Northumberland, lived briefly in Portsmouth, where her father was a naval officer, and then moved with her parents to London, where they inhabited an elderly river barge on the Thames. Educated at St. Paul's and then Westminster, where she was one of the "token ...

Northumberland. Honourable mention to Janet McTeer.

26. Rebecca Grant

Actress | The Thirteenth

Rebecca Grant is mainly known for playing series regular 'Daisha Anderson' in BBC1's Bafta award winning program, Holby City and Shaheen Wazir in Tiger Aspect's 'Prisoners Wives II'. She received an award for 'Best Actress in a lead role' at the International Filmmakers Festival for World Cinema in...

Nottinghamshire. Honourable mentions to Cherie Lunghi and Samantha Morton.

27. Lucy Fleming

Actress | Survivors

Lucy Fleming was born on May 15, 1947 in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Survivors (1975), The Boat That Rocked (2009) and Mystery and Imagination (1966). She has been married to Simon Williams since April 1986. She was previously married to Joseph William Peter ...

Oxfordshire. Honourable mentions to Miriam Margolyes, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Frances O'Connor, Rachel Ward and Annabelle Wallis.

28. Moira Quirk

Actress | Hogwarts Legacy

Moira Quirk was born in Rutland, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Hogwarts Legacy (2023), Destiny 2: The Witch Queen (2022) and Dragons Rescue Riders: Heroes of the Sky (2021). She has been married to Michael Rayner since May 26, 1996. They have two children.

Rutland.

29. Natalie Lisinska

Actress | The Lake

Natalie Lisinska burst onto the Canadian acting scene soon after graduating from Toronto Metropolitan University Theatre School, when she was cast as the lead in "At the Hotel", a series directed by Ken Finkleman for the CBC. Other leading roles soon followed. Adept at both comedy and drama, ...

Shropshire. Honourable mention to Rosemary Leach.

30. Jenny Agutter

Actress | Logan's Run

Jenny Agutter was born on December 20, 1952, in Taunton, Somerset, England, UK. The daughter of an army officer, she spent her childhood traveling and living in different countries. Her film career began at the age of 12 in East of Sudan (1964), which was quickly followed by The Magical World of ...

Somerset. Honourable mentions to Sarah Parish and Indira Varma.

31. Meera Syal

Actress | Yesterday

Meera Syal was born on June 27, 1961 in Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Yesterday (2019), Beautiful Thing (1996) and Absolutely Anything (2015). She has been married to Sanjeev Bhaskar since January 21, 2005. They have one child. She was previously...

Staffordshire. Honourable mention to Frances Barber.

32. Rosemary Harris

Actress | Spider-Man

Rosemary Harris is an English actress. She has won 4 Drama Desk Awards, and nominated 9 times for Tony Awards. In 1966, she won the "Tony Award for Best Actress" for her role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in "The Lion in Winter". In films, she is better known for portraying May Reilly Parker in the "...

Suffolk.

33. Julia Ormond

Actress | Sabrina

The dark and classically beautiful British actress and social activist Julia (Karin) Ormond was born on January 4, 1965, in Surrey, into England, the second of five children. Born of privilege as the daughter of a well-to-do laboratory technician, her parents divorced when she was young. Julia ...

Surrey. Honourable mentions to Julie Andrews, Jacqueline Bisset, Anna Chancellor and many others.

34. Judy Geeson

Actress | To Sir, with Love

Born in Arundel, Sussex, in 1948, Judy's father moved the family to London when she was 10 years old and enrolled her and sister Sally Geeson into the Corona Academy, Chiswick. Judy initially wanted to be a ballet dancer but had to change course when she suffered from terrible headaches as a result...

Sussex. Honourable mentions to Alexandra Bastedo, Sally Geeson, Haydn Gwynne, Anna Massey and Amanda Redman.

35. Hazel Court

Actress | The Curse of Frankenstein

Born in Birmingham, England, Hazel Court carried on a love affair with the world of movies and make-believe that made her a leading student at her hometown's School of Drama and later helped her land a contract with the J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Graduating from bits to supporting roles to leads,...

Warwickshire. Honourable mentions to Stephanie Cole, Felicity Kendal and Billie Whitelaw.

36. Elisabeth Croft

Actress | Armchair Thriller

After her education at a boarding school in the Lake District she studied acting under Sir Frank Benson in 1930. Her first acting roles were in Shakespeare plays. mainly playing boys roles. She then joined the Nuneaton Repertory Theatre where she continued in Shakespeare but now in strong roles ...

Westmorland.

37. Billie Piper

Actress | Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Billie Piper studied at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School. She caught the eyes of record producers who were interested in signing a young vocalist when she was the poster girl for the ad campaign of a British pop music magazine, "Smash Hits". She released her first single, "Because We ...

Wiltshire. Honourable mention to Diana Dors.

38. Margaret Leighton

Actress | The Go-Between

Tall, reedy, thin-browed, light-haired British award-winning theatre actress Margaret Leighton was born in Worchestershire, England, on February 26, 1922, the daughter of a businessman. Expressing an early desire to act, she quit school at age 15 and auditioned and joined Sir Barry Jackson's ...

Worcestershire. Honourable mentions to Susan Jameson and Trudie Styler.

39. Anna Maxwell Martin

Actress | Becoming Jane

The striking actress Anna Maxwell-Martin is a rising star on both stage and screen. Anna had dreamed all her life of becoming an actress even though her family had no background in the arts. She starred in school plays and an acclaimed production of "Breezeblock Park" in the role of Betty.

At the ...

Yorkshire (East Riding). Honourable mention to Maureen Lipman.

40. Judi Dench

Actress | Skyfall

Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the ...

Yorkshire (North Riding). Honourable mentions to Thelma Barlow and Penelope Wilton.

41. Jodie Whittaker

Actress | Doctor Who

Jodie Whittaker came to prominence after her breakout performance in Venus (2006), which was met with a string of nominations, including British Independent Film Award and Satellite Award nominations for "Most Promising Newcomer" and "Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical." Whittaker ...

Yorkshire (West Riding). Honourable mentions to Helen Baxendale, Diana Rigg, Mollie Sugden and Mary Tamm.