Olivia Colman

Olivia Colman (born January 30, 1974, Norwich, Norfolk, England) is a British actress who first garnered attention for her comedic work on television and who later had success in a series of dramatic roles in film and TV. She won numerous accolades, most notably an Academy Award for her performance in The Favourite (2018).

Early life and education

Colman was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England, the daughter of Mary (née Leakey) Colman, a nurse, and Keith Colman, a surveyor. The family moved frequently as her parents renovated houses. While attending Gresham’s School in Holt, Norfolk, Colman discovered acting. Her first role was the lead in the school’s production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Although she had dreams of becoming an actress, Colman initially decided to pursue other career options. After graduating from Gresham’s School in 1992, she studied teaching at Homerton College in Cambridge.

During this time, however, Colman joined the amateur drama club Footlights, which is affiliated with the University of Cambridge. That experience led her to enroll at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School—which lists Patrick Stewart, Jeremy Irons, and Daniel Day-Lewis among its alumni—to study drama. She graduated in 1999. Two years later she married Ed Sinclair, whom she had met at Footlights. The couple have three children.

TV success: Broadchurch and The Crown

Colman made her TV acting debut in 2000 on the BBC Two sketch comedy program Bruiser. Over the next several years she appeared on a number of comedy shows, in roles of varying importance. Her credits from 2001 to 2005 include People Like Us, The Office, Gash, and Look Around You. She also regularly acted on BBC Radio comedies. Colman began to earn more notice through her work with the comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb, whom she had met while a member of Footlights. In 2003 she began portraying Sophie Chapman on their series Peep Show, which was a huge hit during its nine seasons, and from 2006 to 2008 she appeared regularly in That Mitchell and Webb Look.

Catapulted by her success in comedy, Colman began appearing in a number of popular series, including Doctor Who, Skins, and Rev. She also played the matriarch of an eccentric family in the black comedy Flowers (2016–18). In 2016 Colman showcased her dramatic skills in The Night Manager, a six-episode limited series based on a John le Carré novel; it starred Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. She also starred with David Tennant in the crime series Broadchurch (2013–17). For her portrayal of Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller, Colman won the BAFTA TV Award for best actress in 2014.

Colman’s TV success continued with her portrayal of Elizabeth II in the third (2019) and fourth (2020) seasons of Netflix’s acclaimed The Crown; she won an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her performance. She also had a recurring role as Godmother in Fleabag (2016–19), a popular series created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. In 2021 Colman starred with David Thewlis in Landscapers, a true-crime miniseries that aired on HBO. It centers on the British couple Susan and Christopher Edwards, who were convicted of murdering Susan’s parents. Colman later played Miss Havisham in the miniseries Great Expectations, an adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens.

Films: The Lobster, The Favourite, and The Lost Daughter

While continuing to appear in a variety of television series, Colman began to gain attention for her work in films. She was cast as Police Constable Doris Thatcher in the comedy Hot Fuzz (2007), and in 2011 she had a starring role in Paddy Considine’s feature-length debut movie, the drama Tyrannosaur. In the latter film she portrayed an abused wife who befriends a self-destructive man, and Colman was named best actress by the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). Her other films from 2011 include The Iron Lady, in which Colman was cast as the daughter of Margaret Thatcher (played by Meryl Streep).

In 2015 Colman appeared in Yorgos Lanthimos’s acclaimed surrealist film The Lobster, playing the manager of a hotel where single people must find a spouse within 45 days or be turned into an animal. The Lobster won the Jury Prize at the Cannes film festival, and Colman received another BIFA award, this one for best supporting actress. She reteamed with Lanthimos for The Favourite (2018), a dramedy in which she played Queen Anne, an eccentric and sickly ruler whose affections are sought by two competing women (Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone). Colman’s performance was widely acclaimed, earning her several major awards, including her first Academy Award (for best actress in a leading role).

Colman became something of a mainstay at the major award ceremonies. She earned praise—and an Oscar nomination—for her work in Florian Zeller’s The Father (2020), in which she starred alongside Anthony Hopkins as a daughter coping with her father’s declining mental capacity. Colman also received an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of a divorced professor in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter (2021), an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel. In 2022 Colman starred in the comedy Joyride and in Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light, about employees at a struggling movie theater in the 1980s. She also lent her voice to several animated films, including The Mitchells vs the Machines (2021) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), and to the TV miniseries Watership Down (2018). In 2023 she appeared in an episode of the TV series The Bear and with Timothée Chalamet in the film Wonka, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s popular children’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that imagines chocolatier Willy Wonka’s life as a young man.

Other activities

In 2015 Colman began working with UNICEF, and five years later she became president of the organization’s U.K. branch. She is especially noted for her advocacy of humanitarian aid in war-torn and impoverished countries. Colman also is involved with Amnesty International. In 2019 she was awarded the honorary rank of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).