Helen Elizabeth McCrory

Helen Elizabeth McCrory was born in Paddington, London, to a Scottish diplomat father and a Welsh mother, and trained at the Drama Centre London. She established herself on the British stage as one of the premier classical actresses of her generation, earning critical acclaim with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre in productions of The Seagull, Blood Wedding, and Medea.

McCrory earned international cinematic recognition portraying Narcissa Malfoy in the final three Harry Potter films and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair in Stephen Frears's The Queen (2006). Her career reached peak television acclaim with her fierce, soulful performance as Polly Gray in Steven Knight's global sensation Peaky Blinders (2013–2019). During the COVID-19 pandemic, she and husband Damian Lewis raised over one million pounds for Feed NHS.