Lisa McGrillis

Lisa McGrillis is a British actress born on 3 September 1982 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. At the age of five, she relocated with her family to Scotby, near Carlisle in Cumbria, where she was raised by her mother, a special needs teacher, and her father, an accountant. She attended Trinity School in Carlisle before pursuing a degree in performing arts at Northumbria University.

McGrillis began her professional career with a role in Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters in 2007. The production subsequently transferred to London's National Theatre and then to Broadway, where McGrillis appeared in 2010. In 2011, she took on the role of Margaret the maid in Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe. When the production's lead, Eve Best, fell ill, director Jeremy Herrin asked McGrillis to step into the role of Beatrice. She appeared alongside Russell Tovey in The Pass at the Royal Court Theatre in 2014, a production that was later filmed for release in 2016.

On television, McGrillis played a regular role in the sitcom Hebburn, which aired from 2012 to 2013. She went on to portray DS Rachel Coles in Inspector George Gently alongside Martin Shaw, a role she held from 2014 to 2017. From 2016 to 2019, she starred in the BBC sitcom Mum as Kelly, the girlfriend of the son of Lesley Manville's character. In February 2019, she appeared as Hannah Wilde in the eighth episode of the eighth series of Death in Paradise. Her work in the Channel 4 police drama No Offence, in which she played a grass-roots Manchester politician in the third series, spanned 2015 to 2018. In 2020, she appeared as Mad Kay in the BBC sitcom King Gary, written by Tom Davis, and as Sandra in the Channel 4 drama Deadwater Fell.

McGrillis starred as Courtney in the BBC comedy Avoidance in 2022, alongside creator Romesh Ranganathan and Jessica Knappett, with the casting announced on 17 January of that year. In 2023, she took on the lead role of Helen Cavendish in the ITV drama Maternal and also appeared in Sex Education. The following year, she joined the cast of the Disney+ adaptation of Jilly Cooper's Rivals, appearing alongside David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer, and Katherine Parkinson.

McGrillis is married to actor Stuart Martin, whom she met at a Christmas party held at the National Theatre bar. The couple have two children. She serves as an ambassador for PIPA, a charity focused on supporting children.