
Brenda Blethyn
Blethyn pursued an administrative career before enrolling at the Guildford School of Acting in her late 20s. She subsequently joined the Royal National Theatre, gaining attention for her performances in plays such as Benefactors (1984), for which she received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Actress of the Year in a New Play. She made her Broadway debut in the revival of the Marsha Norman play 'Night Mother (2004).
Blethyn made her screen debut in the Mike Leigh television film Grown-Ups (1980). She has since starred in the sitcoms Chance in a Million (1984–1986), The Labours of Erica (1989–1990), Outside Edge (1994–1996), and Kate & Koji (2020–2022). She received Primetime Emmy Award nominations playing Auguste van Pels in Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001) and for her guest role in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2008). From 2011 to 2025, she starred in ITV crime drama series Vera portraying Detective Chief Inspector Vera Stanhope.
She made her feature film debut with a small part in Nicolas Roeg's The Witches (1990). She starred in the Mike Leigh film Secrets & Lies (1996), which earned her a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress as well as a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was also Oscar-nominated for her role in Little Voice (1998). Her other notable film credits include A River Runs Through It (1992), Girls' Night (1998), Saving Grace (2000), Lovely & Amazing (2001), Plots with a View (2002), Pumpkin (2002), A Way of Life (2004), Pride & Prejudice (2005), and Atonement (2007).
Biography from the Wikipedia article Brenda Blethyn. Licensed under CC-BY-SA. Full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

A Woman of Substance

All Good Things

Anne Frank

Between the Sheets

Chance in a Million

Kate & Koji

Outside Edge

The Buddha of Suburbia

The Labours of Erica

Vera

War & Peace
Recently Updated Shows

Doc
Doc centers on the hard-charging, brilliant Dr. Amy Larsen, Chief of Internal and Family Medicine at Westside Hospital in Minneapolis. After a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life, Amy must navigate an unfamiliar world where she has no recollection of patients she's treated, colleagues she's crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away. She can rely only on her estranged 17-year-old daughter, whom she remembers as a 9-year-old, and a handful of devoted friends, as she struggles to continue practicing medicine, despite having lost nearly a decade of knowledge and experience.

Dark Matter
Hailed as one of the best sci-fi novels of the decade, Dark Matter is a story about the road not taken. The series follows Jason Dessen, a physicist, professor, and family man who – one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago – is abducted into an alternate version of his life. Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the multiverse of lives he could have lived. In this labyrinth of mind-bending realities, he embarks on a harrowing journey to get back to his true family and save them from the most terrifying, unbeatable foe imaginable: himself.


