Sophie Hunter

Sophie Irene Hunter, born on 16 March 1978 in the Hammersmith district of London, is an English theatre director, playwright, and former actress and singer. She is the daughter of Anna Katharine (née Gow) and Charles Rupert Hunter, who later divorced. Hunter has two younger brothers and two half-siblings from her father's second marriage. Her maternal grandfather is General Sir Michael Gow, a British Army officer who served as Aide-de-Camp General to the Queen from 1981 to 1984, and her maternal great-great grandfather was First World War politician J. E. B. Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone. She is a niece of pianist Julius Drake.

Hunter received her secondary education at St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith and went on to study Modern Languages, with a concentration in French and Italian, at the University of Oxford. Following her graduation, she spent two years in Paris studying avant-garde theatre at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, then trained at the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in New York City under theatre and opera director Anne Bogart.

Her professional theatre career spans performance, direction, and dramaturgy across Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Hunter co-founded the Lacuna Theatre Company and served as an associate director at the Royal Court Theatre in London. She is also co-founder and artistic director of the theatre collective Boileroom, which won the 2007 Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for the avant-garde play The Terrific Electric. That same year, Hunter made her directorial debut co-directing The Terrific Electric at the Barbican Pit. She was additionally a member of the performance collective Militia Canteen and has served as collaborating director and dramaturge on marionette and puppetry productions with the Phantom Limb Company.

Hunter appeared on Broadway in 2008 in Macbeth. She also served as an associate director at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York for the play Enron. In 2010, she directed an Off-Off-Broadway revival of Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts at Access Theatre, and in 2011 she directed the performance art piece Lucretia, based on Benjamin Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia, at Location One's Abramovic Studio in New York City. That same year, she directed the Phantom Limb Company's 69° South, also known as the Shackleton Project, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Harvey Theatre before touring North America. Hunter also worked on the transfer of Punchdrunk's Sleep No More to New York City in 2011 while serving as creative director for the theatre company Emursive, for which she also directed The Forgotten and Don't Major in Debt Student House in 2012. In 2013, she developed Loma Lights, one of the largest public arts programs in New York City.

In August 2015, Hunter directed two productions to critical acclaim: Phaedra for the Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival in Northern Ireland, created in collaboration with music director Andrew Staples and featuring mezzo-soprano Ruby Philogene, and The Turn of the Screw for Aldeburgh Music. In June 2017, she participated as narrator in Music on the Meare at the Aldeburgh Festival, presenting readings from Ovid, John Dryden, and Ted Hughes alongside oboist Nicholas Daniel.

Earlier in her career, Hunter worked as an actress in film and television. She appeared in the television series Midsomer Murders and Keen Eddie, both in 2004, as well as Mumbai Calling in 2007 and Torchwood in 2009. In 2004, she played Maria Osborne in the costume drama film Vanity Fair, and in 2009 she played Annabel Blythe-Smith in the thriller film Burlesque Fairytales. In May 2017, Hunter was announced as a producer for the film adaptation of Megan Hunter's novel The End We Start From, alongside her husband Benedict Cumberbatch, Adam Ackland's production company Sunnymarch, and Liza Marshall's Hera Productions.

Hunter has also pursued a career in music. In 2005, she recorded a French-language album titled The Isis Project in collaboration with songwriter Guy Chambers, and in 2011 she released an English-language EP titled Songs for a Boy, again with Chambers. She also collaborated with Armin van Buuren on the song "Virtual Friend," included on his 2010 album Mirage.

Among her recognitions, Hunter received the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award in 2007 and an International Artist Fellowship from Location One in New York City for 2010 and 2011. On 14 February 2015, she married actor Benedict Cumberbatch at St Peter and St Paul's Church, Mottistone on the Isle of Wight, with a reception held at Mottistone Manor. The couple have three sons. Hunter speaks fluent French and Italian and is also a skilled pianist.