Elizabeth Debicki
Australian actress (born 1990)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elizabeth Debicki (born 24 August 1990)[1] is an Australian actress. Born in Paris and raised in Melbourne, she trained in dance before studying drama at the University of Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts. She made her feature film debut in A Few Best Men (2011), and her first major screen role came as Jordan Baker in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013). Her early stage work included the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Maids. In 2016, Debicki starred in the television series The Kettering Incident and the miniseries The Night Manager. Her later film roles included Alice in Widows (2018) and Kat in Tenet (2020).
Elizabeth Debicki | |
|---|---|
Debicki in 2016 | |
| Born | 24 August 1990 Paris, France |
| Citizenship | Australia |
| Alma mater | University of Melbourne |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 2010–present |
From 2022 to 2023, Debicki portrayed Diana, Princess of Wales in the final two seasons of the Netflix drama series The Crown. The role brought her several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, making her the first Australian actress to win in that category. Her performances draw on dance training, with close attention to physical detail, posture and movement across her screen and stage work.
Early life and education
Debicki was born on 24 August 1990 in Paris, France,[1] to a Polish father and an Australian mother of Irish descent.[2][3][4] Her parents were both ballet dancers.[5] When Debicki was five, the family moved to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.[6] She is the eldest of three children and has a sister and a brother.[7]
Debicki became interested in ballet early in life and trained as a dancer before turning to theatre.[8] By the age of twelve, after growing taller than her teachers, she had concluded that she was unlikely to pursue ballet professionally, although she continued dancing until she entered acting school.[9]
She attended Huntingtower School in eastern Melbourne, where she achieved two perfect study scores in Drama and English and was the school's dux when she graduated in 2007.[10] In August 2009, while in her second year of training, she received a Richard Pratt Bursary for outstanding acting students.[11] In 2010, she completed a bachelor's degree in drama at the University of Melbourne's Victorian College of the Arts.[2][12]
Career
Early work and international roles (2011–2016)
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Debicki's first professional screen role was in the 2011 comedy film A Few Best Men, in which she played a secretary.[13] Her first major screen role came soon afterwards, when director Baz Luhrmann cast her as Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby (2013), his adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. While rehearsing her first Melbourne Theatre Company play, Debicki taped a screen test for Jordan Baker, then flew to Los Angeles for a second audition with Luhrmann.[14] She appeared in the film, released in 2013, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan, and won the AACTA Award for Best Supporting Actress in Film.[15][16]
In 2013, Debicki played Madame in the Sydney Theatre Company production of Jean Genet's The Maids, opposite Cate Blanchett as Claire and Isabelle Huppert as Solange.[17][18] The Guardian noted her imposing stage presence and the use of small movements and phrasing to show Madame's hold over the maids.[19] She won the best newcomer award at the Sydney Theatre Awards, and the production later played at the New York City Center.[20][21] She also appeared in the third season of the Australian television series Rake.[22] In 2015, Debicki appeared in Guy Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,[23] Justin Kurzel's Macbeth,[24] and the biographical adventure film Everest.[25]
In 2016, she returned to the London stage as Mona Sanders in The Red Barn, a David Hare adaptation of Georges Simenon's novel La Main, at the Lyttelton Theatre.[26] In television, Debicki starred as Dr Anna Macy in The Kettering Incident (2016), an eight-part Australian mystery miniseries set in Tasmania.[27] The Guardian described the series as an eight-part Tasmanian gothic thriller whose central mystery follows Anna's return to her childhood town.[28] The role won Debicki the 2016 AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama, while the series won Best Telefeature or Miniseries.[29] She also played Jed Marshall in the BBC miniseries The Night Manager (2016), adapted from the John le Carré novel of the same name.[30] A 2020 profile in The Guardian said the role, which appeared slight on the page, became more powerful in her performance, and reported that le Carré told Debicki she had made Jed more interesting than he had written her.[31]
Film roles and Widows (2017–2021)
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In 2017, Debicki played Ayesha, leader of the Sovereign people, in the Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. She later reprised the role in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).[32] The same year, she joined Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in a voice-over role and played Eva, the wife of Simon Baker's character, in the Australian film Breath.[33][34] Her performance in Breath earned an AACTA Award nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.[35]
Debicki's 2018 roles included the science fiction film The Cloverfield Paradox,[36] the HBO film The Tale,[37] the live-action/animated film Peter Rabbit,[38] and Vita & Virginia, in which she portrayed Virginia Woolf.[39] She also played Alice in Steve McQueen's heist film Widows, co-starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez and Cynthia Erivo.[40] Writing about the film, Vulture said Debicki had become known for glamorous parts and that Widows gave her the chance to play an ordinary woman.[41] Debicki told GQ that she had wanted to play a character who felt real and multidimensional.[42] Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com called Alice Debicki's breakthrough role.[43]
Debicki next appeared opposite Claes Bang and Mick Jagger in the 2019 thriller The Burnt Orange Heresy, playing Berenice Hollis.[44] In Christopher Nolan's spy film Tenet (2020), she played Kat, an art specialist trapped in a marriage to Kenneth Branagh's Russian oligarch.[45][46] Nolan sought Debicki for the role, which brought one of the film's more direct emotional threads.[45][47] Debicki later described the role as physically and emotionally demanding, especially in scenes involving Kat and Sator.[46] She was also among the cast of the sequel Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021).[48]
The Crown and later work (2022–present)
Debicki portrayed Diana, Princess of Wales in the final two seasons of the Netflix period drama series The Crown from 2022 to 2023.[49] She played Diana during the 1990s, including the final years of her marriage to Prince Charles, the Panorama interview, and her final days in 1997.[50][51] Debicki worked on Diana's accent and physical mannerisms, and later said the role was unusually vulnerable because it required her to work from public history, fact and opinion rather than inventing a fictional backstory.[50][52] Speaking about the sixth season, she said filming the paparazzi scenes was physically stressful and made it difficult to relax after leaving the set.[51]
The role became the most visible work of Debicki's career up to that point, following several years of supporting roles in film and television.[52] Reviews of the fifth season highlighted her handling of Diana's look and mannerisms,[53] while later coverage of the sixth season noted the warmth and vulnerability of Diana's relationship with Dodi Fayed.[54] Her performance in the fifth season earned nominations from the Primetime Emmy,[55] Golden Globe,[56] and Screen Actors Guild awards.[57] For the sixth and final season, she won the Golden Globe,[58] Critics' Choice,[59] Screen Actors Guild,[60] and Primetime Emmy awards.[61] Her Emmy win made her the first Australian actress to win Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.[62]
After The Crown, Debicki said she wanted to do something different and joined Ti West's horror film MaXXXine (2024), playing film director Elizabeth Bender.[52][63] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that the film was nearly stolen by Debicki's supporting performance as Bender, whom he described as a demanding British director and Maxine's mentor.[64] In 2025, she returned to the London stage opposite Ewan McGregor in Lila Raicek's My Master Builder, a contemporary play inspired by Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, at Wyndham's Theatre in the West End.[65][66][67] Debicki is set to appear in David Fincher's Netflix film The Adventures of Cliff Booth, a follow-up to Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood centred on Cliff Booth.[68]
Acting approach and screen image
Debicki has described acting in terms of physical awareness. Having trained in dance before turning to theatre, she told Allure that dance gave her an awareness of the body and that acting felt like a related medium shaped through language.[9] Her screen performances have often drawn on restraint and stillness; Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian connected characters such as Jed Marshall in The Night Manager and Kat in Tenet through their private sadness and physical reserve.[69] For The Crown, Debicki studied footage of Diana, Princess of Wales, and worked with a movement coach to find the "emotional logic" behind Diana's posture, gaze and gestures rather than simply copying her movements.[70][71]
Critical attention to Debicki's physical acting increased with Widows and The Crown. Reviews of Widows focused on her use of body language as Alice moves from fear and dependence towards self-possession.[43][72] Her portrayal of Diana drew sustained attention for its physical and vocal precision, while Diana biographer Andrew Morton was struck by her likeness to the princess.[73][53][74]
Debicki's tall stature[a] and appearance have also influenced her screen image and casting. Vanity Fair described how costume designers used her height in The Great Gatsby, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and The Night Manager.[75] She has also noted a recurring pattern of being cast as affluent, unhappy women, though she said she could not explain what directors repeatedly saw in her for such roles.[69]
Acting credits
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | A Few Best Men | Maureen | [13] |
| 2013 | The Great Gatsby | Jordan Baker | [76] |
| 2015 | Macbeth | Lady Macduff | [24] |
| The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | Victoria Vinciguerra | [23] | |
| Everest | Caroline Mackenzie | [25] | |
| 2017 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 | Ayesha | [32] |
| Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets | Emperor Haban Limaï | Voice[33] | |
| Breath | Eva | [34] | |
| 7 from Etheria | Serita Cedric | Collection of shorts[77] | |
| 2018 | The Cloverfield Paradox | Mina Jensen | [36] |
| Peter Rabbit | Mopsy Rabbit | Voice[38] | |
| Widows | Alice | [40] | |
| Vita & Virginia | Virginia Woolf | [39] | |
| 2019 | The Burnt Orange Heresy | Berenice Hollis | [44] |
| 2020 | Tenet | Catherine Barton | [45][46] |
| 2021 | Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway | Mopsy Rabbit | Voice[48] |
| 2023 | Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 | Ayesha | [32] |
| 2024 | MaXXXine | Elizabeth Bender | [63] |
| 2026 | Wicker | The Tailor's Wife | [78] |
| The Adventures of Cliff Booth † | TBA | [68] |
Television
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Rake | "Missy" | Season 3, Episode 3[22] |
| 2016 | The Kettering Incident | Dr Anna Macy | 8 episodes[27] |
| The Night Manager | Jed Marshall | 6 episodes[30] | |
| 2018 | The Tale | Mrs. G | Television film (HBO)[37] |
| 2022–2023 | The Crown | Diana, Princess of Wales | Main role (seasons 5–6)[49] |
Theatre
| Year | Production | Role | Playwright | Venue | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | The Gift | Chloë | Joanna Murray-Smith | Melbourne Theatre Company | [79][80] |
| 2013–2014 | The Maids | Madame | Jean Genet | Sydney Theatre Company New York City Center |
[17][18] |
| 2016 | The Red Barn | Mona Sanders | David Hare | Lyttelton Theatre, London | [26] |
| 2025 | My Master Builder | Mathilde | Lila Raicek | Wyndham’s Theatre, West End | [65][66][67] |
