Anna Madeley

Anna Madeley is an English actress born on 1 October 1977 in London, where she attended North London Collegiate School. Her career began at age seven, when her speech teacher arranged auditions for her and she started working as a child actress. She later trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Madeley spent multiple seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company, including its 2001–2002 and 2003–2004 seasons, taking on roles such as Martha in Love in a Wood, Ilse in A Russian in the Woods, Maria in The Malcontent, and Domita in The Roman Actor, the latter opposite Sir Antony Sher. Her stage work extended beyond the RSC during this period, with appearances at the Royal Court Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic, and the Riverside Studios, among other venues.

In 2005, she appeared in three off-West End productions: Laura Wade's Colder Than Here at the Soho Theatre, and both The Philanthropist and The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union at the Donmar Warehouse. That same year she rounded out her stage work by playing both Aaron and Young Alexander Ashbrook in the original Royal National Theatre production of Helen Edmundson's Coram Boy. She reprised her role from The Philanthropist when director Grindley brought the production to Broadway in 2009, making her the only cast member to do so. Her second Broadway credit came in 2011, when she appeared as Sybil in Private Lives at the Music Box Theatre.

Her television work spans all of the main British channels. From 2003 to 2005 she was a regular cast member of ITV's The Royal, playing Nurse Samantha Beaumont. In 2006 she starred in two BBC television films, playing the title character in The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton and appearing in the original drama Aftersun, as well as the ITV drama The Outsiders. In 2007 she appeared in an episode of Lewis and in Channel 4's Consent. In 2010 she appeared in The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, a BBC film based on a script by Jane English and starring Maxine Peake, which screened on the opening night of the Frameline Film Festival at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. In 2016 she played Clarissa Eden in the Netflix series The Crown, and in 2020 she took on the role of Kate Kendrick in Deadwater Fell and was cast as housekeeper Audrey Hall in the remake of All Creatures Great and Small.

Madeley's film work includes the 2018 fantasy adventure The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, in which she played Marie Stahlbaum, the late mother of the protagonist Clara and queen of the magical land Clara discovers. Her stage career continued beyond Broadway with notable productions including The Turn of the Screw at the Almeida Theatre in 2013, The Crucible at the Old Vic in 2014 as Elizabeth Proctor, Les Blancs at the National Theatre in 2016 as Dr. Marta Gotterling, and The Little Foxes at the Young Vic in 2024 as Birdie Hubbard. She has also worked extensively in radio, appearing across multiple series as Helena Justina in adaptations of Lindsey Davis's Falco novels.

Madeley's partner is actor Geoffrey Streatfeild, and they are parents of two children.