Imelda Staunton

Born: 9 January 1956
Where: England, UK

The accomplished stage actress attracted international attention and an Oscar nomination as a backstreet abortionist in Mike Leigh's critically acclaimed Vera Drake.

Until that leading role she was a familiar face thanks to big screen appearances including Sense After Sensibility and Peter's Friends.

The daughter of an Irish roadmender and a hairdresser, her parents arrived in England from County Mayo just before she was born.

After attending the La Sainte Union Convent in London she went on to study at Cambridge University.

Here persistence paid off - after she had been turned down by the National Youth Theatre - when she landed a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Stage work followed at the Royal Shakespeare Company and she is a three time winner of the Olivier Award for roles in A Chorus of Disapproval, The Corn Is Green, and Into the Woods.

It wasn't until 1993 that she received international attention for Margaret in Kenneth Branagh's acclaimed movie of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Following this, she appeared in Sense and Sensibility, Twelfth Night and the Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love, in which her husband, Jim Carter, also performed.

Staunton then took a break from appearing in front of the camera and lent her voice to several animated films including The Ugly Duckling, The Canterbury Tales, and Chicken Run.

She was back on the big screen in 2001 with Andie McDowell and Anna Chancellor in romantic comedy Crush and with Natasha Little, Nick Moran and Ioan Gruffudd in Another Life.

In 2003, she appeared in Mel Smith's lacklustre Blackball and Craig Ferguson's romantic comedy I'll Be There with Charlotte Church.

However, it was as Vera Drake in Mike Leigh's period piece that brought her to the attention of Hollywood in 2005.

The same year she had a supporting role in the delightful childen's comedy Nanny McPhee and also joined Little Britain's Matt Lucas and David Walliams as Mrs Mead.

In 2007 she played a waspish schoolmarm in Freedom Writers with Hilary Swank and fine tuned the role for the vicious part of Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.