Anna Friel

Her father, Desmond "Des" Friel (born 1951), was born in Belfast and raised in County Donegal, Ireland.

He is a former French teacher and folk guitarist, who now owns a web design company.

Her brother Michael is a doctor, who in his youth did television advertising work for Hovis.

Friel attended Crompton House secondary school—an Anglican school—and later Holy Cross College, a Roman Catholic sixth form.

She began her training as an actress at Oldham Theatre Workshop.

Her mother Julie Bamford Friel (born 1952) is a special needs teacher.

Anna Louise Friel (born 12 July 1976) is an English actress.

Anna Louise Friel was born on 12 July 1976 in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Friel made her professional acting debut at age 13 in the television miniseries G.B.H., which aired in the UK in 1991 and was nominated for several BAFTAs.

This led to appearances on the soap operas Coronation Street and Emmerdale in 1991 and 1992, respectively.

She was cast the following year as Beth Jordache on the Channel 4 soap Brookside, a role she played for two years.

The character was involved in some of the series' most famous plots, including the death of her abusive on-screen father, and a storyline featuring the first ever pre-watershed lesbian kiss in British television history.

She first achieved fame with her portrayal of Beth Jordache in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside (1993–1995), and came to international prominence when she played Charlotte "Chuck" Charles on ABC's Pushing Daisies (2007–2009), for which she received a nomination for the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

In 1995, Friel won a National Television Award in the category of Most Popular Actress for her work on Brookside.

Friel made her film debut in 1998 with a leading role in The Land Girls.

Upon leaving the show, a decision that she initially thought to be a "terrible mistake", Friel was cast in an episode of Tales from the Crypt and appeared in Stephen Poliakoff's television film The Tribe (1998), which drew controversy for its inclusion of a ménage à trois sex scene.

She then played leading roles in small-screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and Robert Louis Stevenson's St. Ives (both 1998), and co-starred in several British films, such as The Land Girls (1998), Rogue Trader (1999), and Mad Cows (1999).

Subsequent credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), Sunset Strip (2000), Me Without You (2001), Timeline (2003), Goal! (2005), Bathory (2008), Land of the Lost (2009), You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), Limitless (2011), Books of Blood (2020), and Charming the Hearts of Men (2021).

Her stage credits include Closer (Broadway, 1999), Breakfast at Tiffany's (West End, 2009), and Uncle Vanya (West End, 2012).

Next, she played Hermia in the 1999 film version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, saying later of the experience, "I think that [role] sort of changed things for me, especially in America, because the cast was really great—Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christian Bale—and people started to think, 'if she's working with [those people] she must be doing well'".

During that same period, Friel made her Broadway debut in a production of Patrick Marber's Closer, which ran for 172 performances at the Music Box Theatre in New York.

In his review of the show for Variety, Charles Isherwood wrote:

"It's the exquisitely lovely Friel who is the discovery here. Her Alice is both the nihilistic core of the play and its tender center, and the paradoxical mixture of toughness and fragility [she] brings to it are essential to the play's deepest truths. It's a star-making performance."

Friel won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her work as Alice.

Her film appearances during this time included lead roles in An Everlasting Piece (2000), Sunset Strip (2000), Me Without You (2001), and Richard Donner's big-budget fantasy-adventure film Timeline (2003), in which she played the love interest of the main character.

In 2001, Friel made her West End stage debut in an adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu.

She also starred in the Canadian film The War Bride (2001), for which she received a Genie Award nomination for Best Actress.

Friel's next starring role was in the Irish television film Watermelon (2003).

She was then cast as Attorney Megan Delaney in The Jury, an American legal drama series that ran on Fox for a single season in 2004.

In her review for The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley called the show "clever, innovative", and said of Friel, "hers is the most textured and persuasive character".

Friel later admitted to finding the job a challenge: "Everyone was saying, 'you will never believe how much hard work it is', and I was telling them not to worry because I'm used to it … but my God were they right … You run off the set from one scene and get changed and run back on. It is so fast and so very well organised but it is hard, hard bloody work".

Next, she co-starred as a Geordie nurse in the British-American sports drama Goal! (2005; a role she reprised in its sequel) and starred as an ex-drug addict in the Canadian film Niagara Motel (2006).

In his review of the latter, The Georgia Straight's Ken Eisner said that Friel's performance in the Toronto-set drama had "the most weight", while commending her "perfect local accent".

In November 2006, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bolton for contributions to the performing arts.

In 2007, Friel was cast as lead character Charlotte "Chuck" Charles in Pushing Daisies, an American comedy-drama television series created by Bryan Fuller, which aired on ABC from 2007 to 2009.

The show received favourable reviews during its two-season run, with Friel's performance winning her a nomination for the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress.

The latter moment went on to be broadcast around the world—including 76 countries where homosexuality is illegal—when it was featured as part of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.

She later said, "For a very long time I was defined by that kiss. And I didn't want to be. I spent years turning down other lesbian roles because it felt like going back to Beth. [But it] did also make me want to take on parts that showed extreme sides of women".

She won an International Emmy Award for her portrayal of the title character in the ITV/Netflix series Marcella (2016–2021).

Her other accolades include a Drama Desk Award, an honorary degree, and a BAFTA nomination.