Jessica Hynes

Hynes was born in Lewisham, London, and grew up in Brighton, where she attended St Luke's Infant and Junior Schools and Dorothy Stringer School.^[1] After her parents split up, she was raised by her mother. She moved back to London as a young adult.^[2] Her maternal grandmother came from the village of Llanelian, north Wales, where her uncle also ran a farm. Her mother is a fluent Welsh speaker who later moved back to north Wales. In 2023, Hynes took part in the S4C series Iaith ar Daith where she began to learn the Welsh language; she cited being able to speak Welsh to her mother as a reason why she wanted to take part in the programme.^[3]

As a teenager, Hynes was a member of the National Youth Theatre company, and made her stage début with the company in Lionel Bart's Blitz! in 1990.^[4] In 1991 she appeared in Disney's Swing Kids (1993 film) alongside Frank Whaley and Robert Sean-Leonard. In the same year she appeared in Peter Greenaway's film The Baby of Macon playing 'The first Midwife'. Between 1992–1993, she played a season at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds. In 1994, Hynes appeared as an uncredited extra in the first episode of The Day Today in the Attitudes Night segment, a parody of the UK's changing attitudes.

Early in her career, Hynes teamed up with future Spaced co-star Katy Carmichael in a comedy double-act called the Liz Hurleys, appeared in two productions at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre, and acted for television shows including Staying Alive, Six Pairs of Pants, (Un)natural Acts, and Asylum (on which the Spaced team of Hynes, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright first assembled). From 1998 to 2000, she played the supporting role of Cheryl in the hit sitcom The Royle Family; she reprised the role for special episodes in 2006, 2009 and 2010. In 1999, she co-wrote and starred in Spaced, for which she won two comedy awards and was nominated for an International Emmy and a Bafta for writing and creating the show alongside Simon Pegg.

Hynes' London theatre début was in April 2002, playing the tough ex-prisoner "Bolla" in Jez Butterworth's The Night Heron at the Royal Court for which she was nominated for a Lawrence Olivier Award^[5] In 2004, she played a minor part as Yvonne in horror comedy Shaun of the Dead, again working with Pegg and Wright. In the same year, she was also cast as Magda, friend of the titular character, in the Hollywood sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

In early 2007, Hynes took a lead role in the film Magicians, starring alongside comic duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb. She provided the voice of Mafalda Hopkirk in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. She played Joan Redfern in the 2007 Doctor Who episodes "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood". She then appeared in part two of the story "The End of Time", playing a character named Verity Newman, who is Joan's great-granddaughter.^[6] Hynes appeared in Big Finish's Eighth Doctor audio adventure "Invaders from Mars", with her Spaced colleague Simon Pegg. She starred in Son of Rambow (credited as Jessica Stevenson), playing Mary Proudfoot opposite the star of the film, Bill Milner. In November 2007, BBC One released Learners, a comedy drama television movie which Hynes starred in and wrote.^[7]

In 2008, she appeared in a revival of Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests at the Old Vic. In 2009 she made her Broadway début in the play's transfer^[8] and was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance. The show itself won a Tony for best revival that year.

Hynes appeared as a "right-on" PR person, Siobhan Sharpe, in the London Olympics centred satire Twenty Twelve, of which the first series screened on BBC Four in 2011, moving to BBC Two in spring 2012. A further series was screened in July 2012. She reprised the role in the 2014 series W1A for which she won a BAFTA.

In 2017, she directed her first feature film, The Fight, produced by Jamie Adams and Unstoppable media. In 2018, she played the role of a mother in the BBC Four programme There She Goes. She stars alongside David Tennant, raising a daughter with a severe learning disability. It is based on the real life of writer Shaun Pye and his wife Sarah Crawford whose daughter was born with a chromosomal disorder. She won a Bafta for her role in the series and was nominated for an International Emmy for her role in '414' the special made in 2023.^[9] In 2019, she starred in the BBC and HBO production Years and Years for which she won a Royal Television Society award.

Hynes is married to Adam Hynes, a sculptor. The couple have been together since they were 18 years old, but only married in 2002, when she officially changed her surname from her birth name of Stevenson, including for screen credits.^[10][2] They have three children together, and live in Folkestone, Kent.^[2][11]