Lesley Manville Biography

Fast Facts

• Trained as a soprano singer from the age of 8, but chose to pursue a career in acting instead
• Made her professional stage debut in the West End musical I and Albert in 1972
• Met director Mike Leigh in 1979 and the two have frequently collaborated, beginning with a 1980 episode of BBC2 Playhouse called "Grown-Ups
• " Part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's original 1985 staging of Les liaisons dangereuses, with Alan Rickman playing Valmont
• Appeared in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London in 1989, opposite Judi Dench and Bernard Hill, and directed by Sam Mendes
• Played Ouisa in the 2010 revival of Six Degrees of Separation at the Old Vic
• 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