Lesley A. Manville (born 12 March 1956) is an English actress of film, theatre and television. She is an Olivier Award winner.Manville began her career on stage in the 1972 West End musical I and Albert. In the 1980s, she appeared in the films Dance with a Stranger (1985), directed by Mike Newell and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), directed by Stephen Frears. She frequently collaborates with director Mike Leigh, twice being named British Actress of the Year at the London Film Critics Circle Awards for her performances in his 2002 film All or Nothing and his 2010 film Another Year. For the latter, she also received a BAFTA Award nomination. Other Mike Leigh films she has appeared in include High Hopes (1988), Secrets & Lies (1996), Topsy Turvy (1999) and Vera Drake (2004).Her extensive career on stage includes appearing in the early 1980s Royal Court productions of Andrea Dunbar's Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1981) and Carol Churchill's Top Girls (1982). She also appeared in Top Girls in New York, in the 1983 Off-Broadway production. Other roles include As You Like It (1985) and Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1985-1986), at the RSC and All About My Mother (2007) and Six Degrees of Separation (2010), at the Old Vic. At the National Theatre, her work includes His Dark Materials (2005), The Alchemist (2006) and her Olivier nominated role in Mike Leigh's Grief (2011). For her role as Helena in the National's revival of the Ibsen play Ghosts (2013), she won the 2014 Olivier Award for Best Actress.
Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress, London Film Critics Circle Award for British Actress of the Year, National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, Obie Award for Ensemble Performance, Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress
Nominations
British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, European Film Award for Best Actress, British Independent Film Award for Best Supporting Actress, National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, Drama League Award for Distingui...
Movies
Maleficent, Another Year, Secrets & Lies, Mr. Turner, All or Nothing, Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy, Rupture, The Christmas Candle, Romeo and Juliet, High Hopes, Womb, Molly Moon: The Incredible Hypnotist, Spike Island, A Christmas Carol, A Five Star Life, Grown-Ups, Dance with a Stranger, The Firm, High ...
TV Shows
Mum, North & South, River, Cranford, Harlots, The Cazalets, Painted Lady, King Cinder, A Bunch of Fives, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, Mayday, The Queen, Holding On, David Copperfield, Other People's Children, The Bite, Ain't Misbehavin'
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Quote
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[on David Schwimmer, her co-star of the play "Some Girls"] It's lovely. He's not at all starry. He doesn't take a solo curtain call. He likes to take his gloves off and get his hands dirty. He's a very committed, hard-working theatre actor so we're just like working any other group of actors in that way. Of course, that's not necessarily how other people see it. A friend of mine rang the box office to collect a ticket I'd reserved for her and the girl said, "who's Lesley Manville?"
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[on Maleficent (2014)]: It's a massive epic Disney film based on Sleeping Beauty starring Angelina Jolie in the title role. Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple and myself play the three pixies. They are hilarious. It was just the most happy, happy time. Some of the time in the film we're life-sized, but for the rest of it we're little ditty pixies. It was done by motion capture, so we spent three weeks of filming flying around Pinewood studios, with the Cirque du Soleil people strapping us in and tumbling us in the air. It was just fantastic. It's going to come out this Summer and there's going to be a doll of me that you'll be able to buy at the Disney shop! It's amazing that Imelda and I go from epic Mike Leigh plays and films to being pixie Disney dolls!
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[on having portrayed the mother of Matt Smith, James Corden and Colin Morgan]: All those boys have done rather well since they worked with me as their mother. They owe me big time. They're all wealthier than me - they can have a whip round.
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Fact
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She was awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama. She is an actress in London, England.
She won the 2014 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance as Helene Alving in Richard Eyre's revival of "Ghosts".
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She won the 2013 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance as Helene Alving in Richard Eyre's revival of "Ghosts".
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Is a trained soprano-singer, and has practiced the art since the age of eight. She chose to pursue an acting career instead, when she discovered her talent for improvisation.
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Despite being a praised theater-thespian, she took 10 years off from the stage, between 1995 and 2005, in order to pursue acting in movies, especially in those directed by Mike Leigh. In 2005, she returned to the stage in the big-budgeted production of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" as Marisa Coulter. The same part has also been performed by Nicole Kidman, two years later, in The Golden Compass (2007).
$18 Million
