Oscar and Bafta-winning actress Olivia Colman was born in Norwich in 1974. While studying teacher training at Cambridge she joined the Footlights club. Her first screen roles were in TV comedy, including ‘Peep Show’, ‘The Mitchell and Webb Look’, ‘Green Wing’, ‘Rev’ and ‘Twenty Twelve’.
After taking the role of an abused wife in Paddy Considine’s directorial debut ‘Tyrannosaur’ (2011), she broke into more dramatic roles, both on TV in series such as ‘Broadchurch’, ‘The Night Manager’, ‘The Crown’ and ‘Landscapers’, but also international arthouse films including Yorgos Lanthimos’s ‘The Lobster’ (2015) and ‘The Favourite’ (2018) – which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
She was also Oscar-nominated for her roles in ‘The Lost Daughter’ (2021) and ‘The Father’ (2020). She can currently be seen in the coming-of-age drama ‘Joyride’, and she is set to appear in Sam Mendes’s forthcoming film ‘Empire of Light’ and as Miss Havisham in ‘Great Expectations’ for the BBC.