Juliet Stevenson

Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth (née Marshall), a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer.^{[citation needed]} Stevenson's father was assigned a new posting every two and a half years.^[1] When Stevenson was nine, she attended Berkshire's Hurst Lodge School in Ascot,^[2] and she was later educated at the independent St Catherine's School in Bramley, near Guildford, Surrey, and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).^[3] Stevenson was part of the 'new wave' of actors to emerge from the Academy.^{[citation needed]} Others included Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Payne, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Kenneth Branagh, Imelda Staunton and Fiona Shaw.^{[citation needed]} She started her stage career in 1978 with the Royal Shakespeare Company.^{[citation needed]}

Although she has gained fame through her television and film work and has often undertaken roles for BBC Radio, she is known as a stage actress. Significant stage roles include her performances as Isabella in Measure for Measure, Madame de Tourvel in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Anna in the UK premiere of Burn This in 1990 and Paulina in Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court theatre and the West End (1991–92). For the last she was awarded the 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress.^[4]

In the 1987 TV film Life Story, Stevenson played the part of scientist Rosalind Franklin, for which she won a Cable Ace award.^[5] She played the leading role in the Anthony Minghella film Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991) and her roles in The Secret Rapture (1993), Emma (1996), Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). She has more recently starred in Pierrepoint (2006), Infamous (2006) as Diana Vreeland and Breaking and Entering (2006) as Rosemary, the therapist. In 2003, she played the mother of an autistic child in the television film Hear the Silence, a film promoting the now debunked claims of Andrew Wakefield that the MMR vaccine was responsible for autism in children.^[6] The film makers and Stevenson were criticised as Wakefield's professionalism was already seriously in doubt.^[6][7]

In 2008, she starred in ITV's A Place of Execution. The role won her the Best Actress Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards.^[8] She performs as a book reader, and has recorded all of Jane Austen's novels as unabridged audiobooks, as well as a number of other novels, such as Lady Windermere's Fan, Hedda Gabler, Stories from Shakespeare, and To the Lighthouse. She received lifetime achievement prize at Women in Film And TV awards.^[9]

In 2024, she played Mary, the mother of a returning missing child in the British psychological thriller film Reawakening, alongside Erin Doherty and Jared Harris.^[10]

Stevenson married her long-time partner, British anthropologist Hugh Brody, in 2021. They have a daughter and a son and live in Suffolk, but she also has an apartment in New York.^[11][12] She is an atheist but considers herself a spiritual and superstitious person.^[13][14]

In 2008, she campaigned on behalf of refugee women^[15] with a reading at the Young Vic of Motherland,^[16][17] in protest against conditions at Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre.^[18][19] Directed by Stevenson, with a script written by Natasha Walter, Motherland was described in The Guardian as "an intelligent and shocking piece of theatre", with Anthony Barnett characterising it as "skilful and engrossing, a mixture of drama and performance, witness and testimony, music and reporting."^[20]

Stevenson is patron of the UK registered charity LAM Action, which provides support, information and encouragement to patients with Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and their families, and raises funds to advance research into LAM.^[21] She is also an Amnesty Ambassador,^[22] and is patron of two other charities: Young Roots, a charity for young refugees; and Antenatal Results and Choices,^[23] which supports parents who have had a diagnosis of fetal anomaly.

On 12 September 2016, Stevenson, as well as Cate Blanchett, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Peter Capaldi, Douglas Booth, Neil Gaiman, Keira Knightley, Jesse Eisenberg, Kit Harington and Stanley Tucci, featured in a video from the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR to help raise awareness of the global refugee crisis. The video, titled "What They Took With Them", has the actors reading a poem written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by primary accounts of refugees, and is part of UNHCR's #WithRefugees campaign, which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide further shelter, integrating job opportunities and education.^[24][25]

Stevenson's friends and frequent collaborators include director Robert Icke,^[26][27][28] comedian and feminist broadcaster Deborah Frances-White,^[29][30] poet Aviva Dautch^[31][32][33] and concert pianist Lucy Parham.^[34][35]

Stevenson is also a painter and has talked about how her art has helped her through difficult moments such as the COVID-19 lockdown and the death of her stepson.^[36]

Stevenson regularly attends protests in support of the people of Palestine. On 30 November 2024 she spoke at the National March for Palestine in London, highlighting the difference in the way the plight of the Palestinian people is portrayed in comparison to other people, and saying: "As artists we cannot remain silent in the face of such gross violations. Violations of human rights and of international law. Violations of the truth and of every human instinct."^[37] In September 2025, she signed an open pledge with Film Workers for Palestine pledging not to work with Israeli film institutions "that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people."^[38]

A partial list of Stevenson's audio recordings:

• Man and Superman, BBC Audiobooks, 1998 (Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1996). Production featured Juliet Stevenson, Ralph Fiennes and Judi Dench. It also included an interview with the director, Peter Hall
• Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, Penguin Audiobooks, 1997
• The Plague Tales, BDD, c. 1997
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare, BBC Radio Collection, 1999 (with Michael Sheen)
• When Love Speaks (2002, EMI Classics) – "Sonnet 128" ("How oft, when thou, my music ...")
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2004 BBC Radio 3)
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, Unabridged, Orion audiobook (2006)
• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Unabridged, Naxos audiobook, 7 CDs (2006)
• Persuasion by Jane Austen. Unabridged, Naxos audiobook, 7 CDs (2007)
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Unabridged, Naxos audiobook, 14 CDs (2007)
• Emma by Jane Austen. Unabridged, Naxos audiobook, 13 CDs (2007)
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Unabridged, Naxos audiobook (2007)
• Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Abridged, CSA Word Classic, 4 CDs (2007)
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
• I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
• The King's General by Daphne du Maurier
• An Unequal Marriage by Emma Tennant
• From Shakespeare with Love by William Shakespeare. David Tennant (narrator), Juliet Stevenson (narrator), Anton Lesser (narrator), Alex Jennings (narrator)
• Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek & My Cousin Rachel (Daphne du Maurier Collection) by Daphne du Maurier. Juliet Stevenson (narrator), Daniel Massey (narrator), Michael Maloney (narrator)
• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
• The London Tapes by Juliet Stevenson
• Ancient and Modern by Sue Gee (2004)
• Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali, abridged (2006)
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, unabridged (2009)
• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (2010)
• A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (2011)
• Middlemarch by George Eliot. Unabridged, Naxos Audiobooks (2011)
• Goldfish Girl by Peter Souter (2011)
• Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers (2012)^[42]
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert (2013)
• The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, unabridged (2014)
• Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty, unabridged (2014)
• Belgravia by Julian Fellowes, (2016)^[43]
• Miss Marple’s Final Cases by Agatha Christie (2022)
• Stevenson's speaking voice is heard in the historical symposium which opens and closes the production of The Handmaid's Tale at English National Opera in 2024.^[44]

In the 1999 Queens Birthday Honours, Stevenson was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

She is a patron of the London International Festival of Theatre.^[45]