Lesley Manville

Lesley Manville

Birth : 1956-03-12, Brighton, England, UK

History

Lesley Manville was born on March 12, 1956 in Brighton, East Sussex, England. She is a multi award-winning actress of theatre, film, and television, and has worked extensively with director Mike Leigh. She is known for Another Year (2010), All or Nothing (2002), Topsy-Turvy (1999), and Secrets & Lies (1996), and her performance in Phantom Thread (2017), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also had a supporting role in Maleficent (2014). Manville's extensive stage career includes roles in As You Like It, Les Liaisons Dangereuses and The Alchemist. Her film debut was in Dance with a Stranger (1985).

Profile

Lesley Manville

Movies

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Executive Producer
A 1950s London cleaning lady falls in love with an haute couture dress by Christian Dior and decides to gamble everything for the sake of this folly.
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Ada Harris
A 1950s London cleaning lady falls in love with an haute couture dress by Christian Dior and decides to gamble everything for the sake of this folly.
Everything I Ever Wanted To Tell My Daughter About Men
The Mother
A woman tells her daughter about every man she’s ever been with – in the hope her daughter won’t make the same mistakes.
Let Him Go
Blanche Weboy
Following the loss of their son, a retired sheriff and his wife leave their Montana ranch to rescue their young grandson from the clutches of a dangerous family living off the grid in the Dakotas.
Misbehaviour
Dolores Hope
A group of women involved in the Women's Liberation Movement hatched a plan to invade the stage and disrupt the live broadcast at the 1970 Miss World competition in London, resulting in overnight fame for the newly-formed organization. When the show resumed, the results caused an uproar and turned the Western ideal of beauty on its head.
Ordinary Love
Joan
An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Flittle
Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies, and dark new forces at play.
LOVE
Herself/Introduced By
In the communal area of a block of temporary accommodation, the residents go about their day-to-day routines in the run-up to Christmas. The bonds of love that keep people together are put to the test.
To Provide All People
Consultant Psychiatrist
To mark the 70th anniversary of the birth of the NHS, acclaimed poet Owen Sheers takes us on a journey that weaves the extraordinary story of the birthing of Nye Bevan's vision of free healthcare for all people with personal stories of the NHS in British society today.
Phantom Thread
Cyril Woodcock
In 1950s London, renowned British dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock comes across Alma, a young, strong-willed woman, who soon becomes ever present in his life as his muse and lover.
Hampstead
Fiona
Emily Walters is an American widow living a peaceful, uneventful existence in the idyllic Hampstead Village of London, when she meets local recluse, Donald Horner. For 17 years, Donald has lived—wildly yet peacefully—in a ramshackle hut near the edge of the forest. When Emily learns his home is the target of developers who will stop at nothing to remove him, saving Donald and his property becomes her personal mission. Despite his gruff exterior and polite refusals for help, Emily is drawn to him—as he is to her—and what begins as a charitable cause evolves into a relationship that will grow even as the bulldozers close in.
A Very British Brothel 2
Narrator (Voice)
This follow-up film returns to Sheffield's City Sauna. The certified massage parlour run by a mum and daughter team, which specialises in mature and larger ladies, is looking to expand.
Rupture
Dr. Nyman
A single mom tries to break free from a mysterious organization that has abducted her.
The Go-Between
Mrs. Maudsley
An elderly man pieces together his childhood memories after finding his diary from 1900, which he wrote when he was 13 years old.
A Very British Brothel
Herself - Narrator (voice)
A look at the daily life of an English brothel.
Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism
Miss Adderstone
An orphan who practices hypnosis faces off against a bank robber who wants her book on the art form.
The One and Only Mike Leigh
Herself
In a revealing documentary, Mike Leigh, director of Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake and Abigail's Party among many others, talks to Alan Yentob about a unique body of work and a lifelong struggle to make films on his own terms. On day one of a Mike Leigh film, there is no script, no story and the actors do not know if they will even be in the final film. It is a process that has yielded some of cinema's most celebrated performances, and Leigh's new film Mr Turner is already winning critical acclaim. Actors including Jim Broadbent, Eddie Marsan, Sally Hawkins, Lesley Manville and James Corden give fascinating insights into the director and his distinctive method of working.
Mr. Turner
Mary Somerville
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
Ghosts
Helene Alving
Lesley Manville gives a career best performance in Richard Eyre's award-winning revival of Ibsen's poignant tragedy. Helene Alving (Lesley Manville) leads an outwardly contented life. It is the eve of the 10th anniversary of her husband's death, and she is about to open an orphanage as a memorial to him. To mark this occasion, her bohemian painter son Oswald (Jack Lowden) has returned from Paris. Helene plans to take the opportunity to reveal the truth to Oswald about his father. But the ghosts of the past erupt during an eventful evening, bringing the facade of civilised family life crashing down. Richard Eyre's production of Henrik Ibsen's coruscating masterpiece exploring the malign consequences of buried secrets and lies was universally acclaimed by the critics. It was also nominated for five Olivier Awards. This HD recording was captured at Trafalgar Studios during the play's strictly limited West End season.
Maleficent
Flittle
A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land's fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal – an act that begins to turn her heart into stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading King's successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom – and to Maleficent's true happiness as well.
The Christmas Candle
Bea Haddington
Deep in the heart of the English countryside lies the enchanting village of Gladbury. Legend has it every 25 years an angel visits the village candlemaker and touches a single candle. Whoever lights this candle receives a miracle on Christmas Eve. But in 1890, at the dawn of the electric age, this centuries old legend may come to an end.
An Adventure in Space and Time
Heather Hartnell
This docudrama travels back in time to 1963 to see how Doctor Who was first brought to the screen. Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles. Wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama. Allied with a team of unusual but brilliant people, they went on to create the longest running science fiction series ever made.
Romeo & Juliet
The Nurse
In Verona, bad blood between the Montague and Capulet families leads to much bitterness. Despite the hostility, Romeo Montague manages an invitation to a masked ball at the estate of the Capulets and meets Juliet, their daughter. The two are instantly smitten but dismayed to learn that their families are enemies. Romeo and Juliet figure out a way to pursue their romance, but Romeo is banished for his part in the slaying of Juliet's cousin, Tybalt.
A Five Star Life
Kate Sherman
Single and middle-aged, beautiful Irene (Margarita Buy) is wholly devoted to her job as an inspector of luxury hotels. Constantly on the road, she indulges in expensive pleasures at impeccable resorts, but always incognito and alone, soon escaping to the next exotic destination with her checklist and laptop in tow. When her best friend and ex, Andrea (Stefano Accorsi), who has always been a source of emotional support, suddenly becomes unavailable, Irene is thrown into a deep existential crisis. "Luxury is a form of deceit," she is told by a fellow traveller in the fog of a steam room, and thus begins Irene's quest to bring more meaning into her life.
Spike Island
Margaret
Teenage musicians travel to England's Spike Island in the hope of attending an outdoor performance by their favorite band, the Stone Roses.
Ashes
Cath
One-time hard man Frank Barron is barely recognisable now he’s been afflicted with Alzheimer's, but when his estranged son Jamie visits him in hospital he realises the extra stress Frank is put under and decides to break him out in the hope of returning him to his family. As the two travel across the country, beginning to bond along the way, it soon transpires that both Frank and Jamie are at odds with their past.
14 Actors Acting
Herself
This year's great performers striking some of the classic attitudes of cinema.
Another Year
Mary
During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.
Womb
Judith
A woman's consuming love forces her to bear the clone of her dead beloved. From his infancy to manhood, she faces the unavoidable complexities of her controversial decision.
A Christmas Carol
Mrs. Cratchit (voice)
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
Sparkle
Jill
Liverpool chancer Sam moves to London with his aspiring chanteuse mum and begins an affair with a PR boss. But problems arise when he falls for her estranged daughter, too.
Perfect Parents
Sister Antonia
After a violent incident in Lucy's public school, her atheist parents Stuart and Alison decide to find her a safe 'traditional' school. The only one they can afford is St. Mary of the Veil, run by nuns whose 'preference' for Catholic families is de facto exclusivity, given the waiting list. So they pose as devout, and get his murky mate Eddie to find them a priest they can 'bribe' for a parish reference, while Lucy is genuinely converted. It works, but when Stuart overhears a dark secret things take a tragic turn.
The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael
Sarah
In a small English coastal town, three teenage boys are drawn into a world of temptation and violence. Bored, troubled and excluded, the boys are unable to accept or even recognise moral boundaries. Their actions move inexorably towards a truly shocking act, that will horrify their sleepy community and expose its deepest, hidden fears.
Vera Drake
Mrs. Wells
Abortionist Vera Drake finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain – a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.
Promoted to Glory
Capt. Annie Sullivan
An alcoholic falls in love with a Salvation Army captain who is trying to help him.
Plain Jane
Dora Bruce
Drama set in 1911 about a love triangle concerning a father, his son and their maid, Jane.
All or Nothing
Penny
Penny works at a supermarket and Phil is a gentle taxi-driver. Penny’s love for Phil has run dry and they lead joyless lives with their two children, Rachel, a cleaner, and Rory, who is unemployed and aggressive.
Bodily Harm
Mandy Greenfield
Mitchel, a mild-mannered suburban stockbroker spirals out of control after losing his job, finding his wife in flagrante with a sleazy neighbour, and discovering his dad is dying of cancer, all on the eve of his 44th birthday.
David Copperfield
Mrs. Micawber
After the death of his father and a second wedding of his mother, David Copperfield suffers from his tyrannical stepfather, Mr. Murdstone. The mother dies shortly after the death of another child, whereupon Mr. Murdstone sends David to London, where he has to work for a starvation wage.Here he makes some new friends, but soon flees from the capital of England to his aunt Traddles in Canterbury, where he is adopted by her.
Topsy-Turvy
Lucy Gilbert
After their production "Princess Ida" meets with less-than-stunning reviews, the relationship between Gilbert and Sullivan is strained to breaking. Their friends and associates attempt to get the two to work together again, which opens the way to "The Mikado," one of the duo's greatest successes.
Toy Boys
Mrs. Allen
Middle-class parents face difficult decisions if they want their sons to go to the “right” school.
Milk
Fiona
Forty-five-year-old Adrian has been living with his mother Lucy and running their Wiltshire dairy farm all his adult life. When Lucy unexpectedly dies of a heart attack, a rogue's gallery of family members show up at the farm to argue over the execution of Ruth's will. The one object that everyone seems to want, and several people try to steal, is Ruth's valuable Modigliani painting. In the midst of all this confusion over Ruth's death, a mysterious visitor named Ilaria inserts herself onto the scene and has a surprising effect on those gathered.
Secrets & Lies
The Social Worker
After her adoptive mother dies, Hortense, a successful black optometrist, seeks out her birth mother. She's shocked when her research leads her to a working class white woman, Cynthia.
O Mary This London
Sophie
Three young Dubliners go to London in search of fun, fortune and, in the case of 17-year-old Mary Kelly, an abortion. Homeless and jobless, their adventures quickly turn sour.
Screenplay: Bad Girl
Penny
A young single mother has to convince the authorities that she is a fit parent.
Top Girls
Marlene
Marlene celebrates her new position as MD of Top Girls Appointment Agency by giving a dinner party for five oddly assorted women from centuries past.
The Firm
Sue Bissell
A seemingly respectable estate agent leads a double life as the head of a vicious, well-organised gang of football hooligans.
High Hopes
Lætitia Boothe-Brain
Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.
Sammy and Rosie Get Laid
Margy
Sammy and Rosie are an unconventional middle-class London married couple. They live in the midst of inner-city chaos, surround themselves with intellectual street people, and sleep with everybody - except each other! Things become interesting when Sammy's father, Rafi, who is a former Indian government minister, comes to London for a visit. Sammy, Rosie, and Rafi try to find meaning through their lives and loves.
High Season
Carol
On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate's ex-husband. Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he's fallen in love with Kate, his wife thinking she's found her own lover. A rare vase, a spy, old friendships, the statue's unveiling, and off-hand English sorting-out play into the resolution.
Christmas Present
Judy Tall
A Christmas black comedy based on the tradition in Hammond's Bank that a member of the board should take a turkey and 6 pence to a deserving poor family.
The Moon Over Soho
Sally Spencer
A wily publisher of arts magazines tries to cope with ever-growing financial problems - and also his formidable German mother.
Dance with a Stranger
Maryanne
Ruth Ellis lives with her ten-year old son Andy next to a night club. One night she meets David Blakely, and they start a love affair. However, for David with his upper-class background, it is impossible to uphold the relationship. He breaks up with her, something which makes Ellis, obsessed by him, very upset.
Dog Ends
Vivienne
A middle-aged man is feeling the strain of looking after his elderly grandfather, who is demanding and needs a lot of medical treatment. Then a neighbour suggests a painless way to be rid of him. This black comedy is set in the future, where euthanasia is lawful and increasingly common, but it should still, ideally, be voluntary.
Mike Leigh: Making Plays
(Archive Material)
Writer and Director Mike Leigh discusses the techniques used to create his plays.
Grown-Ups
Mandy
Dick and Mandy, a young working class couple, move into a council house in Canterbury, and find Mr. Butcher, one of their former teachers, living next door. Mandy's unmarried sister, Gloria, is constantly dropping in, and will not take any hints that the couple would prefer to be left alone, until her presence finally goads them to action.
The Fetch
Julie
Dijon, in the time of Napoleon. Emilie Sagee begins her career as a schoolteacher - a career haunted by a mysterious handicap that led to her losing 18 jobs in 16 years. This reconstruction is based on the evidence of her pupils and covers the year she spent at a school in Latvia-a year which nearly brought the school to ruin and forced her at last to face the cause of her misfortunes.
Back to Black
Cynthia Winehouse
A biopic centered on English singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse.
The Critic
In 1934 London, Jimmy Erskine, the most feared drama critic in town, finds himself in the crosshairs of his newspaper’s new owner. Nina Land, the actress determined to win his favor, becomes entangled in a dangerous web of blackmail, deceit and murder.
A Statement of Affairs
Carol
A group of six friends, who have known each other since childhood, find their friendship tested when one of their number is found dead, leading to the question - were they murdered or did they commit suicide?
The Agency
Anthea
Adapted from the acclaimed short story by Man Brooker Prize Nominee Sarah Hall. The Agency is a modern and stylish take on middle class female empowerment, amidst the social sub-culture, described collectively as "ladies who lunch". Disillusioned with a decade of domesticity, housewife Hannah Baines (Ania Sowinski), is befriended by an enigmatic older woman Anthea (Lesley Manville,) who introduces a select and seductive inner circle of women. In confidence, Anthea recommends a private and reliable company who "can set up something marvellous" for her. Hannah contemplates the implications of attending her initial consultation, at The Agency.