Tamzin Merchant

Merchant was born 4 March 1987,^[2] in Haywards Heath, Sussex, England.^{[3][better source needed]} She was educated at Windlesham House School and Brighton College,^[4][5] although she has also lived in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.^[4] After twice deferring university places to concentrate on her acting career, she eventually studied English and Drama with Education at Homerton College, Cambridge.^[5]

Merchant's early credits include Margo Durrell in the 2005 BBC television film My Family and Other Animals and Georgiana Darcy in the 2005 film Pride and Prejudice.^[1] In 2006 she appeared in two more BBC dramas, as Sara Fox, the daughter of Alan Davies and Michelle Gomez, in the comedy The Good Housekeeping Guide, and as Probationer Eastwood in the historical drama Casualty 1900s.

In 2007, while studying at the University of Cambridge, she performed in an audio production of Lady Windermere's Fan as Lady Agatha, while in 2008 she appeared in the ensemble drama Radio Cape Cod in which she plays a summer theatre camper. She appears in the music video for Jamie T's "If You've Got The Money" and in Belle and Sebastian's "Nobody's Empire". In 2009, she played Alice Davies in Princess Kaiulani.^[6]

She was cast playing Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII, in the third-season and its finale and features heavily in several episodes of the fourth (and final) season of The Tudors (2009).^[2][6]

Merchant played Daenerys Targaryen in the unaired pilot of the HBO series Game of Thrones,^[6] based on George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series of fantasy novels. The pilot was poorly received, and as a result the first episode was completely remade. Merchant was replaced in her role as Daenerys by Emilia Clarke.^[7]

She played Miranda in the DCI Banks episodes "Playing with Fire - Part 1" and "Playing with Fire - Part 2". In early 2012, Merchant played the 17-year-old Rosa Bud in the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood.^[6]

Merchant was a series regular for 3 seasons of Salem on WGN America from 2014 to 2017.^[8]

In 2019 Merchant was cast as a series regular on the Amazon Prime series Carnival Row.^[9] The series premiered on 30 August and was renewed for a second season.^[10]

In 2020, she starred as Lucy the lead role in the multi-award winning short film Gifts of the Heart, for which she won The Cutting Room International Short Film Festival Best Actress in a Short (CRISFF Award).^[11]

In 2025, she starred alongside John Malkovich, Sean Bean, Miranda Richardson, and Anton Lesser in the biographical drama film: The Yellow Tie.^[12]

She wrote the 2021 children's book The Hatmakers.^[13]

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