Sarah Caroline Olivia Sinclair, CBE, known professionally as Olivia Colman, is an English actress, who is best known for her roles as Queen Anne in the 2018 Searchlight Pictures film The Favourite and Queen Elizabeth in the Netflix period drama series The Crown (2019–2020). She also voiced Marion in Thomas & Friends, PAL, the main antagonist of the 2021 Sony/Netflix sci-fi animated film The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Mama Bear in the 2022 DreamWorks film Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
For Disney, she voiced Homily in the UK dub of The Secret World of Arrietty and Donka Pudowski in Ron's Gone Wrong. She also portrayed Agent Sonya Falsworth in the 2023 Marvel Cinematic Universe/Disney+ series Secret Invasion, and Ivy in the Searchlight Pictures film The Roses.
Born in Norwich, Colman is the daughter of nurse Mary (née Leakey) and chartered surveyor Keith Colman. She was privately educated at Norwich High School for Girls and Gresham's School in Holt, Norfolk. Colman's first role was Jean Brodie in a school production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at age 16. She cites her mother's interrupted career as a ballet dancer as an inspiration to pursue acting professionally. Colman spent a term studying primary education at Homerton College, Cambridge before studying drama at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, from which she graduated in 1999. During her time at Cambridge, she appeared in the Channel 4 series The Word in 1995 under her nickname "Colly", auditioned for the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, and met future co-stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb. Colman had to adopt a different stage name when she began working professionally, because Equity (the UK actors' union) already had an actress named Sarah Colman. "One of my best friends at university was called Olivia and I always loved her name," Colman told The Independent in 2013. "I was never Sarah; I was always called by my nickname, Colly, so it didn't seem so awful not to be called Sarah."
Roles[]
(The Secret World of Arrietty; Optimum/StudioCanal UK dub)
(The Roses)
