Beautiful British Actresses and Stars
by nortonjk | created - 17 Mar 2012 | updated - 31 Jul 2013 | Public
1. Rachel Weisz
Actress | The Constant Gardener
Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. ...
2. Catherine Princess of Wales
Soundtrack | Royal Carols: Together at Christmas
Catherine Elizabeth Middleton was born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, United Kingdom. She is the oldest of three children with a younger sister, Philippa ("Pippa") Charlotte and a younger brother, James William. Her mother Carole worked as a flight attendant while her father Michael ...
3. Gemma Arterton
Actress | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Gemma Christina Arterton was born in Gravesend, Kent, England, where she was raised. She is the daughter of Sally-Anne (Heap), a cleaner, and Barry J. Arterton, a welder. Her mother's cousin is singer-songwriter Eric Goulden.
Her parents divorced when she was age five, and Gemma subsequently lived ...
4. Queen Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms.
Elizabeth was born in London, the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and she was educated privately at home. Her father ascended the throne on the abdication of his ...
5. 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...
6. Helen Mirren
Actress | The Queen
Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. ...
7. Helena Bonham Carter
Actress | Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Helena Bonham Carter is an actress of great versatility, one of the UK's finest and most successful.
Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London, England, the youngest of three children of Elena (née Propper de Callejón), a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant ...
8. Catherine McCormack
Actress | Braveheart
Catherine McCormack was born on April 3, 1972 in Epsom, Surrey, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Braveheart (1995), Spy Game (2001) and A Sound of Thunder (2005).
9. Claire Forlani
Actress | Meet Joe Black
Claire Forlani was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in London. Educated at Arts Educational School, she moved to the United States with her parents Pier Luigi and Barbara Forlani when she was 19 and began starring in films.
Claire has had leading roles in such films as Meet Joe Black (1998), ...
10. Kate Maberly
Actress | The Secret Garden
Kate Maberly was born and raised in Surrey, England and started acting at age 8, landing her first major motion picture role as the star of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Secret Garden". Directed by Agnieszka Holland, the film achieved international acclaim and has gone on to become a family classic. ...
11. Laura Fraser
Actress | A Knight's Tale
Laura Fraser was born on 24th July 1975 and brought up in Glasgow. Her father, Alister, used to run a small building company but is now an aspiring scriptwriter; her mother, Rose, used to be a nurse but is now a college lecturer. She has an older brother who works with computers, a younger sister ...
12. Emma Watson
Actress | The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years,...
13. Ophelia Lovibond
Actress | Guardians of the Galaxy
Ophelia Lucy Lovibond is an English actress. She grew up in Shepherd's Bush, London, in a single-parent family. She was a scholarship student at Latymer Upper School. She also attended the Young Blood theatre company, a drama club for youth, in Hammersmith. She attended the University of Sussex to ...
14. Gabrielle Anwar
Actress | The Three Musketeers
Her father is Tariq Anwar and her mother is Shireen Anwar. Anwar attended Laleham Church of England Primary and Middle School from 1975 to 1982. Trinian's sketch in the school concert of 1982 gave an early indication of her theatrical leanings. She studied at the London drama and dance school, "...
15. Sarah Alexander
Actress | Stardust
Sarah Alexander was born on January 3, 1971 in London, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Stardust (2007), Green Wing (2004) and Coupling (2000). She is married to Peter Serafinowicz. They have two children.
16. Pollyanna McIntosh
Actress | The Walking Dead
Pollyanna McIntosh grew up in Portugal and Colombia before returning to her birthplace of Scotland, where she first began performing, on stage, at The Edinburgh Festival. At 16, she left for London and soon became involved in indie filmmaking (her first paid gig was as a stoner in Irvine Welsh's ...
17. Christina Cole
Actress | What a Girl Wants
Christina Cole was born on May 8, 1982 in London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for What a Girl Wants (2003), Casino Royale (2006) and Jupiter Ascending (2015).
18. Emily Beecham
Actress | Daphne
Emily Beecham was born on May 12, 1984 in Wythenshawe, Manchester, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Daphne (2017), Hail, Caesar! (2016) and The Pursuit of Love (2021).
19. Michelle MacErlean
Actress | Abducted
Michelle MacErlean, born in England, is a British actress who owes her striking and versatile appearance to unusual mixed parentage.
After graduating from drama school in London, she went on to develop her craft, training in the 'Meisner Technique' at the Actors Temple London and more recently ...
20. Kirsty Hume
Actress | Jungle Red
Born in Ayr, Scotland on September 4th, 1976, Kirsty Hume's love was painting, drawing inspiration from the countryside and influenced at a young age by the likes of Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, and folk artist. As the years passed and men noticed her wherever she went, Kirsty decided that her ...
21. Emilia Clarke
Actress | Game of Thrones
British actress Emilia Clarke was born in London and grew up in Oxfordshire, England. Her father was a theatre sound engineer and her mother is a businesswoman. Her father was working on a theatre production of "Show Boat" and her mother took her along to the performance. This is when, at the age ...
22. Anna Friel
Actress | Land of the Lost
Anna Friel is an English actress, born in Rochdale. She has been acting since the age of 13, appearing in a number of British television programmes. She made her West End stage debut in London in 2001, and has subsequently appeared on stage in several productions, including an adaptation of ...
23. Rachel Hurd-Wood
Actress | Peter Pan
Rachel Clare Hurd-Wood is an English actress and model, best known for her roles as Wendy Darling in Peter Pan (2003), Corrie McKenzie in Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010), and Sibyl Vane in Dorian Gray (2009). She was born on 17 August 1990 in the Streatham district of South London, England, as ...
24. Sarah Bolger
Actress | In America
Sarah Lee Bolger (born 28 February 1991) is an Irish actress. She is best known for her roles in the films In America (2002), Stormbreaker, and The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008), as well as her award winning role as Lady Mary Tudor in the TV series The Tudors (2007), and for guest starring as ...
25. Natalia Tena
Actress | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Natalia Gastiain Tena is an English actress and musician. She played Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter film series, and the wildling Osha in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011).
Tena is also the lead singer and accordionist of Molotov Jukebox. The band released their debut album Carnival Flower...
26. Maria Anastacia Keogh
Actress | Feinmharu
Maria Anastacia Keogh was was born in Lewisham, Greater London. Her family the Thomas clan moved back to the west coast of Mayo, Ireland. As a youth she went to drama classes directed by the Irish playwright, RTE director and actor John Breen. During this time she studied Arts at the National ...
27. Marsha Thomason
Actress | White Collar
Marsha Thomason is a British television and film actress who is known for playing Sara Evers in Disney's The Haunted Mansion, Naomi Dorrit on the ABC series Lost, FBI agent Diana Berrigan on the USA Network series White Collar, Francine Bridge on Sky's Cobra and DS Jenn Townsend in ITV crime series...
28. Lyndsey Marshal
Actress | Rome
Lyndsey Marshal was born on June 16, 1978 in Manchester, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Rome (2005), Trespass Against Us (2016) and Hereafter (2010).
29. Emily Blunt
Actress | Edge of Tomorrow
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt is a British actress known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), The Young Victoria (2009), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), and The Girl on the Train (2016), among many others.
Blunt was born on February 23, 1983, in Roehampton, South West London, England, the second of ...
30. Anna Popplewell
Actress | The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Anna Popplewell was born on December 16, 1988 in London, England as Anna Katherine Popplewell. She is an actress, known for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012). She is also known ...
31. Mischa Barton
Actress | The O.C.
Mischa Barton is a versatile actress with a passion for storytelling and an impressive career spanning over two decades. Working with such acclaimed directors and writers as M. Night Shyamalan, James Lapine and Naomi Wallace, she is known for her magnetic on-screen presence and natural acting ...
32. Susan Lynch
Actress | Waking Ned
Susan was doing plays in Gaelic before she was offered a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama and while there she won the Kenneth Branagh Renaissance Award for Most Promising Student, Her theatre roles include El Cid and Pericles at the National and the title role of Miss Julie at the ...
33. Kelly Reilly
Actress | Pride & Prejudice
Jessica Kelly Siobhán Reilly (born July 18, 1977) is an English actress. Her performance in After Miss Julie at the Donmar Warehouse made her a star of the London stage and earned her a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress of 2003. Reilly was born and brought up in Chessington, ...
34. Cobie Smulders
Actress | The Avengers
Cobie Smulders was born on April 3, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a Dutch father and an English mother. As a girl, Cobie had set her sights on becoming a doctor or a marine biologist. In fact, it wasn't until high school that Cobie started to explore acting after appearing in several ...
35. Alice Eve
Actress | Before We Go
Alice Sophia Eve was born in London, England. Her father is Trevor Eve and her mother is Sharon Maughan, both fellow actors. She is the eldest of three children. Eve has English, Irish and Welsh ancestry. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California when she was young as her father tried to crack ...
36. Catherine Zeta-Jones
Actress | Chicago
Catherine Zeta-Jones was born September 25, 1969 in Swansea, Wales (and raised in the nearby town of Mumbles), the only daughter of Patricia (nee Fair) and David James "Dai" Jones, who formerly owned a sweet factory. She attended Dumbarton House School (Swansea). Her father (the son of Bertram (...
37. Thandiwe Newton
Actress | Crash
Thandiwe Newton was born in London. She is the daughter of Zimbabwean mother Nyasha, a health-care worker from the Shona tribe, and British father Nick Newton, who worked as a lab technician. She lived in Zambia until political unrest caused her family to move back to the UK, where she lived in ...
38. Michelle Dockery
Actress | Downton Abbey
Michelle Suzanne Dockery (born 15 December 1981) is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her role as Lady Mary Crawley in the ITV drama series Downton Abbey (2010-2015), for which she has been nominated for three consecutive Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. She made her ...
39. Juno Temple
Actress | Atonement
Juno Violet Temple was born in London, England, into a showbiz family, the daughter of producer Amanda Temple and film director Julien Temple. She was named 'Juno' after her parents took a visit to the Grand Canyon during pregnancy and found they were standing on a butte of Cape Final known as Juno...
40. Jessica Hynes
Actress | Shaun of the Dead
As both a writer and performer, Jessica Hynes has worked prolifically in television, film and theatre. Born in Lewisham, South London in 1972, she was brought up in Brighton, Sussex. At school, she would write bizarre sci-fi stories. At age 15, she joined the National Youth Theatre and left home at...
42. Nicola Stewart
Actress | Superman: Requiem
Nicola Stewart was born on August 12, 1976 in Hammersmith, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Superman: Requiem (2011), Ruby Blue (2007) and Alice.
43. Alana Morshead
Director | Peach Plum Pear
Alana Morshead was born on June 2, 1983 in Reading, Berkshire, England, UK. She is a costume designer and actress, known for Peach Plum Pear (2011), Do Revenge (2022) and Equals (2015).
44. 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 ...
45. Emma Thomas
Producer | Inception
Dame Emma Thomas is an Academy Award Winner British film producer, known for co-producing films such as The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010) (2010), the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017) and Oppenheimer (2023). She frequently collaborates with her husband, ...
46. Lily Cole
Actress | Snow White and the Huntsman
Lily began working as an actress when she was 6 years old, then returned to film when she was 16 in Marilyn Manson's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. In 2009 she played the female lead in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. Since then she has made over fifteen films with esteemed ...
47. Lily Collins
Actress | The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
Lily Jane Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is English musician Phil Collins, while her mother, Jill Tavelman, who is from Los Angeles, California, was president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club for three terms. Lily moved with her mother to LA at the age of five, after ...
48. Keira Knightley
Actress | Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Keira Christina Knightley was born March 26, 1985 in the South West Greater London suburb of Richmond. She is the daughter of actor Will Knightley and actress turned playwright Sharman Macdonald. An older brother, Caleb Knightley, was born in 1979. Her father is English, while her Scottish-born ...
49. Helen McCrory
Actress | Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2
Award-winning actress Helen Elizabeth McCrory was born in London, England, to Welsh-born Anne (Morgans) and Scottish-born Iain McCrory, a diplomat from Glasgow. After training at the Drama Centre London, Helen began her career on stage in the UK and won the Manchester Evening News' Best Actress ...
50. Carey Mulligan
Actress | Never Let Me Go
Carey Hannah Mulligan is a British actress. She was born May 28, 1985, in Westminster, London, England, to Nano (Booth), a university lecturer, and Stephen Mulligan, a hotel manager. Her mother is from Llandeilo, Wales, and Carey also has Irish and English ancestry.
Her first major appearance was ...
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