Lydia Leonard
Acting
Biography
Lydia Leonard (born 5 December 1980) is a British actress. She was born in Paris to an Irish mother, a teacher, and Anglo-French father, a financial accountant; she lived in France until the age of five. Originally, Leonard wanted to be a barrister, which she considers to be a profession very similar to acting onstage. Her first acting role was in Nativity spectacle in school, where she played King Herod. Leonard went from Bedales School to graduate from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 2003, and then won a BBC Radio Drama Carleton Hobbs bursary. Her radio credits include playing Lady Mabel in a twelve-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope's series of political novels, and Goodwill in The Pilgrim's Progress. On television she had an ongoing role in 50s-set detective series Jericho starring Robert Lindsay, and appeared in True True Lie (2006) and The Long Walk to Finchley (2008), along with a cameo in Rome (2006, The Stolen Eagle), and as a nurse in the BBC's Casualty 1909. Leonard appeared on stage as Polyxena in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hecuba starring Vanessa Redgrave and alongside Francesca Annis in the National Theatre's production of Time and the Conways. In 2005 Leonard appeared as Caroline Cushing in the original Donmar Theatre and West End productions of Frost/Nixon. In 2008 Leonard played a major role in the BBC re-make of The 39 Steps. Part of the Christmas scheduling, its first showing was the most watched program on BBC One on that day. Leonard starred as Cynthia in Joanna Hogg's 2010 feature film Archipelago. Description above from the Wikipedia article Lydia Leonard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
The peacefulness of the Midsomer community is shattered by violent crimes, suspects are placed under suspicion, and it is up to a veteran DCI and his young sergeant to calmly and diligently eliminate the innocent and ruthlessly pursue the guilty.
Midsomer Murders
The gripping, decades-spanning inside story of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the Prime Ministers who shaped Britain's post-war destiny. The Crown tells the inside story of two of the most famous addresses in the world – Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street – and the intrigues, love lives and machinations behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century. Two houses, two courts, one Crown.
The Crown
Tense drama series about the different challenges faced by the British Security Service as they work against the clock to safeguard the nation. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, and the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a highly secure suite of offices known as The Grid.
Spooks
A troupe of ballerinas find themselves fighting for survival as they attempt to escape from a remote inn after their bus breaks down on the way to a dance competition.
Pretty Lethal
A missing FBI agent reappears six years after being declared dead.
Absentia
A down-to-earth account of the lives of both illustrious and ordinary Romans set in the last days of the Roman Republic.
Rome
As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. Later series sees the retired detective working as an MI5 agent operating in the aftermath of the war.
Foyle's War
England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the King dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
Wolf Hall
Two detectives, DCI McDonald and DS Dodds, who seemingly have nothing in common, are thrown together and forge a rumbustious friendship and entertaining partnership.
McDonald & Dodds
A British intelligence officer Kate Henderson races against time to uncover a UK politician's potential ties with the Kremlin, risking her reputation and family, as a murder and election loom.
Secret Service
Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, 1832. Anne Lister attempts to revitalize her inherited home, Shibden Hall. Most notably for the time period, a part of her plan is to help the fate of her own family - by taking a wife.
Gentleman Jack
Crime drama series featuring Life On Mars' DCI Gene Hunt. After being shot in 2008, DI Alex Drake lands in 1981, where she finds herself in familiar company.
Ashes to Ashes
When a child goes missing in the aftermath of a house explosion, a concerned neighbor teams up with a private investigator to find them. As secrets unravel and a military conspiracy emerges, all hell is unleashed on South Oxford's sleepy suburbs.
Down Cemetery Road
The life of Emma Harte, from kitchen maid at the beginning of the 20th-century, to respected businesswoman and grandmother in the 1980s. From humble beginnings, Emma Harte starts her business with a small shop, but over the next twenty years, she expands her stores and invests in the growing textile industry in Leeds.
A Woman of Substance
Respected police officer John River, a gifted cop with a troubled mind, struggles to come to terms with the recent loss of a colleague, and chases a suspect across London - with tragic consequences. Now at odds with the authorities, River ends up in a precarious position as he seeks to bring closure to the mother of murdered teenager, who blames him for failing to keep his promise.
River
An anarchic, laugh-out-loud music comedy following a Muslim female punk band called Lady Parts, tracking the highs and lows of the band members as seen through the eyes of Amina Hussein — a geeky doctorate student who is recruited to be their unlikely lead guitarist.
We Are Lady Parts
Kate is a young woman who has a habit of making bad decisions, and her last date with disaster occurs after she accepts work as Santa's elf for a department store. However, after she meets Tom there, her life takes a new turn.
Last Christmas
Follow Emily Maitlis' professional and personal journey as a Newsnight journalist, leading up to her acclaimed interview with Prince Andrew, in which he explained his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
A Very Royal Scandal
Crawl deep under the skin of Thatcher's Britain, seen through the eyes and experiences of a young, gay man, from the euphoria of falling in love to the tragedy of AIDS. A story of love, class, sex and money.
The Line of Beauty
Belgravia, London, November 7th, 1974. Sandra Rivett, nanny of the aristocratic Lucan family, is found beaten to death. Shortly thereafter, the prime suspect, John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, mysteriously disappears. When the manhunt begins, the subsequent scandal shakes the foundations of the British ruling class like never before.