Amanda Root

Amanda Root is an English actress born in 1963 in Chelmsford, Essex, to Ken and Maureen Root. Her father worked as an accountant, and her mother had participated in amateur dramatic productions during her own childhood. Root attended Philip Morant School in Colchester, where she studied drama at O Level, and joined the Essex Youth Theatre as a teenager. After completing her training at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, she launched her professional career at the Leeds Playhouse in 1983, taking on the role of Essie in George Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple.

Root spent much of the 1980s working with the Royal Shakespeare Company in both Stratford-upon-Avon and London, a period that ran from 1983 to 1991. Among her RSC roles, she played Juliet opposite Daniel Day-Lewis's Romeo, Lady Macbeth, Cressida to Ralph Fiennes's Troilus, and Rosaline to Fiennes's Berowne. She also appeared as Jessica opposite Ian McDiarmid's Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. In 1991, she starred as Nina in Chekhov's The Seagull at the Barbican Theatre, and reprised her role as Adela in a Channel 4 adaptation of The House of Bernarda Alba alongside Glenda Jackson, having first played the character in a 1986 stage production at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Root made her television debut in 1985 in the pilot episode of Ladies in Charge, followed by the title role in Mary Rose, a television drama based on the J.M. Barrie play. In 1988, she appeared as the Storyteller in five episodes of the children's series Jackanory, and the following year voiced Sophie in the animated feature The BFG, which aired on ITV on Christmas Day. In 1993, she played Hilda Maxwell in the ITV period drama The Man Who Cried, opposite Ciarán Hinds, an adaptation of a Catherine Cookson novel that drew 12.7 million viewers. The following year, she appeared in the BBC comedy miniseries Love on a Branch Line as Miss Mounsey. Also in 1994, Root was approached by Emma Thompson for the role of Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, participated in a read-through with the cast in London, but was unable to accept the part because she had already committed to another Jane Austen adaptation.

That prior commitment was the BBC's Persuasion, in which Root starred as Anne Elliot opposite Ciarán Hinds as Captain Wentworth. Produced for the BBC drama anthology series Screen Two, the film broadcast on BBC Two in April 1995 and subsequently received a limited cinematic release in the United States, grossing over five million dollars. It won five TV BAFTAs, including Best Single Drama, and the role became the one for which Root is perhaps most widely recognized. In 1996, she played Patricia Green in Breaking the Code, a character inspired by Bletchley code-breaker Joan Clarke, in a production starring Derek Jacobi as Alan Turing.

Root continued to build a substantial television career through the late 1990s and 2000s. In 1998, she starred in the BBC crime drama Mortimer's Law as barrister Rachel Mortimer. In 2000, she played Dolly in Anna Karenina, and later appeared as Mrs. Davilow in Daniel Deronda in 2002. She portrayed Winifred Dartie across ten episodes of The Forsyte Saga in 2004. In 2006, she played Alice Hoschede, wife of painter Claude Monet, in the BBC miniseries The Impressionists. Her stage work during this period included a return to the Almeida Theatre in 2000 for Yasmina Reza's Conversations After a Burial, and a third appearance there in 2006 as Polina Bardin in Enemies by Maxim Gorky, in a new interpretation by David Hare.

In 2008, Root was cast as Sarah in Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests, a production first staged at the Old Vic Theatre in London before transferring to Broadway's Circle in the Square Theatre in 2009. Directed by Matthew Warchus, the production earned seven Tony nominations and won Best Revival. Root received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance. Her Broadway credits encompass all three parts of the trilogy: The Norman Conquests: Living Together, The Norman Conquests: Table Manners, and The Norman Conquests: Round and Round the Garden. The cast also received a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2009, and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Company Performance.

Root's film work includes The Iron Lady in 2011, in which she played Amanda opposite Meryl Streep's portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, the wartime comedy drama Their Finest in 2016, the historical film The Black Prince in 2017, in which she starred as Queen Victoria, and the British drama Summerland in 2020, where she played social worker Mrs. Lawrence. On television, she played Carol Finch in six episodes of the ITV crime drama Unforgotten in 2018, and portrayed Sue Farquhar, sister-in-law of murder victim Peter Farquhar, in the BBC true-crime drama The Sixth Commandment in 2023. In 2024, she appeared in three episodes of the Netflix black comedy drama Baby Reindeer, a series that went on to win six Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globes, and portrayed English abbess Elizabeth Zouche in four episodes of the BBC historical drama Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, based on Hilary Mantel's novel. In 2025, she appeared in the penultimate episode of the long-running ITV crime drama Vera, playing Deena Corbridge, and is set to feature in the upcoming Amazon Prime crime thriller Lazarus.