After nearly three decades of acting in plays, films and TV shows, Imelda Staunton starred in Vera Drake (2004) and suddenly became a front-runner in the Oscar race for Best Actress. On stage she has had starring roles in dramas and musicals, and she turned in award-winning performances in supporting roles in 1985's A Chorus of Disapproval and The Corn is a Green. On British television she has appeared in movies and the series The Singing Detective (1986), Up the Garden Path (1990) and Murder (2002). In the movies she's been a reliable character actress in such films as Peter's Friends (1992), Shakespeare in Love (1998, starring Gwyneth Paltrow) and Crush (2001), and in the 2007 movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Staunton nearly stole the show as pink-cheeked, iron-fisted headmistress Dolores Umbridge.
Staunton has also done voice work for animated features, including 2000's Chicken Run (she was "Bunty").
Career Highlights: Chicken Run, Peter's Friends, Vera Drake
First Major Screen Credit: Antonia & Jane (1991)
Biography
With an expansive range that stretches from Shakespeare to Chicken Run and just about everything in between, actress Imelda Staunton has, not surprisingly, become one of the most highly respected actresses working in the U.K. If her penchant for playing what many would consider to be mundane, everyday characters found Staunton criminally overlooked in the early years of her career, it was her keen ability to inject those characters with a remarkable complexity that eventually made the stage mainstay-turned-small-screen powerhouse one of Britain's most sought-after talents.
A London native and graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Staunton wasted no time launching her career following graduation, becoming associated with such prestigious venues as The Old Vic and the National Theatre. A trio of productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company gained her numerous critical accolades, and in 1986 Staunton made an impressive television debut in the legendary BBC production of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. Increasingly busy throughout the 1990s, Staunton continued to gain momentum on-stage while earning three Oliviers for her performances in the The Corn Is Green, A Chorus of Disapproval, and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods.
As Staunton's numerous stage roles continued to earn her critical success, frequent television and film roles made her a familiar and endearing face to the general public. Though many of her U.K. television roles went unseen by stateside audiences, supporting roles in such features as Much Ado About Nothing, Sense and Sensibility, and Shakespeare in Love found Staunton slowly working her way into the conscience of U.S. film buffs as well. Moving into the new millennium, Staunton's roles in such films as Chicken Run (for which she provided the voice of Bunty), Crush, Bright Young Things, and I'll Be There found the established television actress actively distancing herself from the small screen in favor of feature films.
Of course, every actor dreams of the breakthrough role that will make him or her an international star, and for Imelda Staunton that role was of a 1950s era abortionist caught in a downward spiral in director Mike Leigh's 2004 drama Vera Drake. Her undeniably affecting portrayal of the title role -- a selfless housewife and cleaning woman who makes a name for herself performing illegal abortions -- earned her near-universal praise. After earning accolades from both The Venice Film Festival and The New York Film Festival as well as the Los Angeles and Chicago film critic associations, Staunton had undeniably arrived when the role earned her a Best Actress nomination for the 77th Annual Academy Awards.
Subsequent roles in the U.K. television comedy Little Britain as well as the features Nanny McPhee and Freedom Writers served well to introduce her to entirely new, often American, audiences. In 2007, just one year after appearing in a colorful Masterpiece Theatre production of the children's classic The Wind and the Willows, she remained in the world of fantasy for her role in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Staunton played Dolores Umbridge -- the latest in a long line of Defense Against the Dark Arts professors -- whose severe disposition drew the ire of Harry Potter himself. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Her most recent film roles included a lead in the comedy, Three and Out, released in April 2008, and the part of Burt Reynolds's landlady in A Bunch of Amateurs, released in December 2008.
On radio, she has appeared in the title role of detective drama series Julie Enfield Investigates, as the lead, Izzy Comyn, in the comedy Up the Garden Path (which later moved to ITV with Staunton reprising the role), in Diary of a Provincial Lady (from 1999) and Acropolis Now.
She also supplies the voices of two characters in the Childrens TV shoe "Big and Small"
Personal life
Staunton is married to the English actor Jim Carter and they have a daughter, Bessie, born 1993. She is also long time friends with Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and best friends with Emma Thompson, her neighbour.
She was awarded the O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2006 New Year's Honours List for her services to drama.
