Harriet Walter

She is known for her role as Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK from 2009 to 2014, and in the Hollywood blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), among other film and television roles.

Walter began her career performing on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in productions of Twelfth Night (1987–88) and Three Sisters (1988), for which she received the Olivier Award for Best Actress. She received Olivier Award nominations for Life x 3 (2001), and Mary Stuart (2006). Her other notable work for the RSC includes leading roles in Macbeth (1999) and Antony and Cleopatra (2006). She made her Broadway debut in the 1983 revival of the William Shakespeare play All's Well That Ends Well (1983), returning to Broadway in Mary Stuart. She reprised her roles of Brutus in Julius Caesar (2012) and the title role in Henry IV (2014), as well as playing Prospero in The Tempest, as part of an all-female Shakespeare trilogy in 2016.

Walter has acted in the films Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Governess (1998), Atonement (2007), The Young Victoria (2009), A Royal Affair (2012), Denial (2016), The Sense of an Ending (2017), Rocketman (2019), and The Last Duel (2021). On television she starred as Harriet Vane in the 1987 BBC Wimsey dramatisations and also appeared in Downton Abbey (2013–15), London Spy (2015), The Crown (2016), Patrick Melrose (2018), Killing Eve (2020), and Silo (2023–present).

She has received an Olivier Award and nominations for a Tony Award, five Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She also earned BAFTA TV Awards nominations for her roles in Succession (2018–2023) and Ted Lasso (2020–2023). In 2011, Walter was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama.

Harriet Walter was born in London, England on 24 September 1950. Her father was Roderick Walter and her mother Xandra Carandini Lee. Xandra was the elder sister of British actor Sir Christopher Lee, making Harriet his niece. This part of the family has Italian origins. On her father's side, Harriet is a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The Times.

In 2026, Walter participated in an episode of the BBC family history television series Who Do You Think You Are?, focusing on her maternal family line, as the Walter family is already documented. During the episode, she learned of her mother's work during World War II for the Naval Intelligence Division, managing the intelligence team responsible for naval intelligence ahead of the D-Day Normandy landings. Walter also explored her direct descent from the English-born Australian opera singer Marie Carandini and an Italian marquis.

Walter was educated at Cranborne Chase School. After turning down a university education, she was rejected by five drama schools before being admitted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Following her training, she gained early experience with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, Paines Plough touring, and the Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster.

Walter appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) productions Nicholas Nickleby (1980), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1981), All's Well That Ends Well (1981), The Castle (1985), A Question of Geography (1988), Twelfth Night (1988), Three Sisters (1988), The Duchess of Malfi (1989), Macbeth (1999), Much Ado about Nothing (2002), and Death of a Salesman (2015).

In 1987, Walter was made an associate artist of the RSC. Additional theatre work includes Three Birds Alighting on a Field (1991, 1993), Arcadia (1993), Hedda Gabler (1996), Ivanov (1997), and Mary Stuart (2005).

Walter made her Broadway debut in 1983, when the RSC production of All's Well That Ends Well transferred there. In 1993, she starred as Biddy in the off-Broadway production of Three Birds Alighting on a Field, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination. She returned to the Broadway stage in 2009, when she reprised her role in Mary Stuart. In 2014, Walter starred as Brutus in an all-female off-Broadway production of Julius Caesar and received her second nomination for Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play.

Walter's films include Sense and Sensibility (1995), Bedrooms and Hallways (1998), The Governess (1998), Onegin (1999), Villa des Roses (2002), and Bright Young Things (2003). In 1987, she portrayed Harriet Vane in three instalments of the BBC's A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery, and played Detective Inspector Natalie Chandler from 2009 to 2012 in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK. Other television roles include Waking the Dead (2001), Little Dorrit (2008), A Short Stay in Switzerland (2009), and Lady Shackleton in the series Downton Abbey (2013–15).

Walter played Brutus in Julius Caesar in 2012, and the title role in Henry IV in 2014, in all-female productions at the Donmar Warehouse. Both productions transferred to Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse in New York. She was set to reprise both roles, as well as playing Prospero in an all-female production of The Tempest, as part of director Phyllida Lloyd's Shakespeare trilogy at the Donmar's temporary, in-the-round, 420-seat theatre next to King's Cross station in 2016.

In 2016, Walter played Clementine Churchill on the Netflix series The Crown, appeared in two episodes in 2017 in Call the Midwife, and had a recurring role on the HBO series Succession (2018⁠–23). She portrayed the Tudor matriarch Margaret Beaufort in the series The Spanish Princess. In 2020, Walter joined the series Killing Eve.

In 2022, Walter played a recurring role as Veronique in British medical comedy-drama miniseries This Is Going to Hurt (2022). She starred as Martha Walker in the Apple TV American science fiction dystopian drama television series Silo (2023-2026).

On 14 January 2025 Walter announced that filming had begun for Paramount+ series Playing Gracie Darling, in which she plays the role of Pattie. She played Margaret Thatcher in two episodes of Brian and Maggie (2025).

Walter was in a relationship with actor Peter Blythe from 1996 until his death in 2004. She married actor Guy Paul in 2011.

At the age of 20, Walter became a feminist and went "into political theatre; to try and put as much feminism into the interpretation of parts I was playing". She was conflicted on her damehood and nearly turned it down, but eventually decided to accept because "there are many fewer women [than men] who can sustain a career to the point where they can be named a Dame, and that's not through lack of talent. It was a slightly political gesture".

She supported the UK remaining in the European Union in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum.

Walter, who speaks Russian, gave a reading at the 2022 Poets for Ukraine event alongside Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal, and others. Shortly after the beginning of the 2023 Gaza war, Walter was one of over 2,000 to sign an Artists for Palestine letter calling for a ceasefire and accusing western governments of "not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them". She condemned the decision to rescind Caryl Churchill's 2022 European Drama Lifetime Achievement Award over Churchill's support of Palestine and alleged anti-semitism.

Walter is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres; Prisoners Abroad, a charity that supports Britons imprisoned overseas and their families; and Clean Break, a charity and theatre company dedicated to sharing the stories of imprisoned women and transforming the lives of female offenders through theatre education.

Theatre:

1979, Royal Shakespeare Company, A Midsummer Night's Dream

1981/82, Royal Shakespeare Company, Helena in All's Well That Ends Well

1981/82, Royal Shakespeare Company, Winnifrede in The Witch of Edmonton

1983, Martin Beck Theatre (Broadway transfer), Helena in All's Well That Ends Well

1985, Royal Shakespeare Company, Skinner in The Castle

1987/88, Royal Shakespeare Company, Imogen in Cymbeline

1987/88, Royal Shakespeare Company, Viola in Twelfth Night

1987/88, Royal Shakespeare Company, Dacha in A Question of Geography

1988, Royal Shakespeare Company, Masha in Chekhov's Three Sisters

1989/90, Royal Shakespeare Company, Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi

1991, Royal Court Theatre (and off-Broadway transfer 1993), Biddy in Timberlake Wertenbaker's Three Birds Alighting on a Field

1993, Royal National Theatre, Lady Croom in the premiere run of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard

1993, Queen Elizabeth Hall, title role in Benda's Medea, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Iván Fischer

1999, Royal Shakespeare Company, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth

2000, Royal National Theatre and The Old Vic, Sonia in UK premiere of Life x 3

2002, Royal National Theatre, Paige in the premiere production of Dinner by Moira Buffini

2005, Donmar Warehouse and Apollo Theatre (West End), Elizabeth I in Mary Stuart by Schiller

2006, Royal Shakespeare Company, Antony and Cleopatra

2009, Broadhurst Theatre (Broadway transfer), Elizabeth I in Mary Stuart

2010, Royal National Theatre, Women Beware Women

2012/13, Donmar Warehouse (and off-Broadway transfer), Brutus in Julius Caesar

2014, Donmar Warehouse (and off-Broadway transfer), King Henry IV in Henry IV

2015, Royal Shakespeare Company and the Noël Coward Theatre, Linda Loman in Death of a Salesman

2016, Donmar Warehouse, Prospero in The Tempest

Audio:

Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation

The Vortex by Noël Coward as Florence Lancaster, BBC Radio 3, 2 January 2000

Scenes of Seduction as Catherine, radio play written by Timberlake Wertenbaker and directed by Ned Chaillet, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 7 March 2005

Desmond Olivier Dingle as herself, broadcast on BBC7 on 28 February 2007, episode 2 of 6, duration 30 minutes

The Arts and How they was done as herself, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 4 April and 9 May 2007, episodes 1 and 6 out of 6, duration 30 minutes

I, Claudius as Livia, wife of Augustus, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 December 2010

Desert Island Discs as herself on BBC Radio 4, guested on 26 June 2011

Time and the Conways as Mrs. Conway in BBC Radio 3's adaptation of J.B. Priestley's play, broadcast on 14 September 2014

The Mysterious Affair at Styles as Emily Inglethorp, a 2024 Audible original

Honours:

She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours and promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to drama.

In 2001 she and Kenneth Branagh were both given honorary doctorates and honorary fellowships at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford.

Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare's Women Today (1988). Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4145-X.

Players of Shakespeare 3 (1994). Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-47734-5.

Macbeth (Actors on Shakespeare) (2002). Faber and Faber, London. ISBN 0-571-21407-X

Other People's Shoes (2003). Nick Hern Books, London. ISBN 1-85459-751-5. Autobiography.

Facing It, Reflections on Images of Older Women (2010). Self Published, London. ISBN 978-0-9566497-1-3

Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women (2016). Nick Hern Books, London. ISBN 978-1-84842-293-3

She Speaks!: What Shakespeare's Women Might Have Said (2025). Virago, London. ISBN 978-0349020433