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Helen McCrory More at IMDbPro »

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The award-winning actress Helen McCrory trained at the Drama Centre, London. She began her career on stage in the UK. She won the Manchester Evening News Best Actress Award for her performance in the National Theatre's "Blood Wedding" and the Ian Charleson award for classical acting for playing Rose Trelawney in 'Trelawney of The Wells'. Helen's theatre work has continued to win her critical praise and a large fan base through such work as the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Les Enfant du Paradis" opposite Joseph Fiennes, Rupert Graves and James Purefoy. At the Almeida theatre her productions have included "The Triumph of Love" opposite Chewital Bjiofor and the radical verse production "Five Gold Rings" opposite Damian Lewis.

Helen has also worked extensively at the Donmar Warehouse playing lead roles in "How I Learnt to Drive", "Old Times" directed by Roger Michel, and in Sam Mendes' farewell double bill of "Twelfth Night" and "Uncle Vanya" (a triumph in both London and New York). For her performance in "Twelfth Night", Helen was nominated for the Evening Standard Best Actress Award, and the New York Drama Desk Awards.

Helen also found time to found the production company 'The Public' with Michael Sheen, producing new work at the Liverpool Everyman, The Ambassadors and the Donmar (in which she also starred).

With over twenty productions under her belt, Michael Coveny recently wrote 'We celebrate the careers of great actors Olivier, Ashcroft, Richardson, Gielgud, Dench, the Redgraves, Gambon, Walter, Sher, Russell Beale and McCrory'.

On the small screen Helen's first television film, Karl Francis' "Street life" with Rhys Ifans, won her the Welsh BAFTA, Monte Carlo Best Actress Award and the Royal Television society Best Actress Award, for her extraordinary performance as Jo. The Edinburgh Film Festival wrote 'simply the best performance this year'.

She went on to win Critics Circle Best Actress Award for her role as the barrister Rose in the Channel 4 series "North Square", having been previously nominated for her performance in "Fragile Heart". Helen has shown her diversity as an actress, appearing in comedies such as "Lucky Jim" with Stephen Tompkinson or "Dead Gorgeous" with Fay Ripley as well as dramas such as Joe Wright's "Charles II", (for which she was nominated for the LA Television Awards), "Anna Karenina".

Spouse

Trivia

Brown hair.

In her childhood she lived in Africa and Paris, and went to an English boarding school.

Daughter of a diplomat and a physiotherapist.

She grew up in Norway, Nigeria, Cameroon, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Madagascar and Paris, among other places.

She was nominated for a 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress for her performance in Uncle Vanya performed at the Donmar Warehouse.

Engaged to actor Damian Lewis in February of 2006.

Has two children with fiancé Damian Lewis, daughter Manon born on September 8, 2006 and son Gulliver, born November 2, 2007.

Daughter, Manon.

She originally couldn't take the role of Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) due to pregnancy and was replaced by Helena Bonham Carter. She has now been cast to play Narcissa Malfoy, Bellatrix's sister, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009).

Personal Quotes

Theatre is liberating because it only works if it's truthful, That's what it requires. That's not true of film: the camera does lie. You can be moved by a performance on set, but when you see it on screen, it does nothing. Yet there will be someone you simply didn't notice on set that on screen: bam!

I was lucky to learn early in life that you need money for food and shelter, but there's no ambition in having money in the bank for the sake of it!

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