Lia Williams
Encyclopedia
Lia Williams is an English actress and film director, notable for many stage, film, and television appearances. She is possibly best known for her role in the motion picture, Dirty Weekend (1993). Williams received a Tony Award
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The award has been presented since 1947, and is for performance in new productions or revivals.-1940s:...

 nomination for her lead performance in the 1996 production of Skylight
Skylight (play)
Skylight is a play by British dramatist David Hare. It opened at the Royal National Theatre, Cottesloe, directed by Richard Eyre, in 1995. The production then moved to the Wyndham's Theatre for a short run from 13 February 1996, after winning the Laurence Olivier Award for the 1995...

.

Life and early career

Williams trained at the Arts Educational School in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

 and then the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 Studio Centre. She also gained much experience in Amateur Theatre in Surrey where she met her first husband. After graduating, Williams worked a season at Paco Borau's Benidorm Palace as a show-girl to gain her Equity Membership. She made her stage debut understudying in the comedy, Daisy Pulls it Off
Daisy Pulls It Off
Daisy Pulls It Off is a comedy play by Denise Deegan. It is a parody of wholesome adventure stories about life in a 1920s girls' English boarding school, such as those by Angela Brazil...

at Southampton
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

's Nuffield Theatre, which moved to London's Gielgud Theatre
Gielgud Theatre
The Gielgud Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, London, at the corner of Rupert Street. The house currently has 889 seats on three levels.-History:...

 in 1983 where she graduated to a leading role.

Theatre

An accomplished stage actress, Williams’s breakthrough performance came in 1991 when she was awarded the London Critics Circle Most Promising Newcomer Award
Award
An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signifiedby trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons...

 for her performance in The Revengers' Comedies
The Revengers' Comedies
The Revengers' Comedies is a play by Alan Ayckbourn. Its title references that of The Revenger's Tragedy. The play is an epic piece running more than five hours and was designed to be presented in two parts...

. In 1993, she created the role of Carol in the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 production of David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...

's Oleanna
Oleanna (play)
Oleanna is a two-character play by David Mamet, about the power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students, who accuses him of sexual exploitation and, by doing so, spoils his chances of being accorded tenure...

. In 1997, Williams appeared in London's West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 and on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 in David Hare
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

's Skylight
Skylight (play)
Skylight is a play by British dramatist David Hare. It opened at the Royal National Theatre, Cottesloe, directed by Richard Eyre, in 1995. The production then moved to the Wyndham's Theatre for a short run from 13 February 1996, after winning the Laurence Olivier Award for the 1995...

. Her performance earned her a Best Actress Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nomination. In 2001, Williams appeared again in the West End and on Broadway in Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

's The Homecoming
The Homecoming
The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...

.

Other theatre performances include Mappa Mundi
Mappa mundi
Mappa mundi is a general term used to describe medieval European maps of the world. These maps range in size and complexity from simple schematic maps an inch or less across to elaborate wall maps, the largest of which was 11 ft. in diameter...

for the English National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 (2002), Rosalind
Rosalind (As You Like It)
Rosalind is a fictional character and the romantic female lead in the comedy As You Like It by William Shakespeare.She is the daughter of the exiled Duke Senior and niece to his usurping brother Duke Frederick. After angering her uncle, she leaves his court for exile in the Forest of Arden...

 in As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...

for the RSC
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

 (2005), The Hothouse
The Hothouse
The Hothouse is a full-length tragicomedy written by Harold Pinter in the winter of 1958 between The Birthday Party and The Caretaker...

for the English National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 (2007), Alan Ayckbourne's Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples...

(2007) and role of Ellida Wangel in Henryk Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...

(2008).

Film and television

In 1993, Williams made her film debut in the lead role of Bella, a mild mannered secretary who murders a peeping tom
Voyeurism
In clinical psychology, voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other activity usually considered to be of a private nature....

 with a hammer, in Michael Winner
Michael Winner
Michael Robert Winner is a British film director and producer, active in both Europe and the United States, also known as a food critic for the Sunday Times.-Early life and early career :...

's film, Dirty Weekend. Subsequent film appearances have included supporting roles in Firelight
Firelight
Firelight is a 1997 period romance/drama film written and directed by William Nicholson, and starring Sophie Marceau and Stephen Dillane. This was Nicholson's first and only film as a director.- Plot :...

(1997), Shot Through the Heart
Shot through the heart
Shot Through the Heart is a 1998 TV film directed by David Attwood, shown on the BBC and HBO in 1998, which covers the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War...

(1998), The King Is Alive
The King is Alive
The King Is Alive is the fourth film to be done according to the Dogme 95 rules. It is directed by Kristian Levring. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.- Synopsis :...

(2000), Chica de Rio
Chica de Río
Girl from Rio is a 2001 film, written and directed by Christopher Monger, starring Hugh Laurie, Vanessa Nunes, Santiago Segura, Lia Williams, and Patrick Barlow.-Plot:...

(2001), and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is a 2007 British film starring Tom Berenger, Joely Richardson, Luke Ward-Wilkinson, Aran Bell, Benjamin Eli and Saoirse Ronan....

(2007).

In 2001, Williams appeared opposite Sheila Hancock
Sheila Hancock
Sheila Cameron Hancock, CBE is an English actress and author.-Early life:Sheila Hancock was born in Blackgang on the Isle of Wight, the daughter of Ivy Louise and Enrico Cameron Hancock, who was a publican. Her sister Billie is seven years older...

 in the TV serial The Russian Bride, a modern day reimagining of Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...

's Thérèse Raquin
Thérèse Raquin
Thérèse Raquin is the title of a novel and a play by the French writer Émile Zola. The novel was originally published in serial format in the journal L'Artiste and in book format in December of the same year.-Plot introduction:Thérèse Raquin tells the story of a young woman, unhappily married to...

. Williams was awarded the Best Actress Golden FIPA
FIPA
The Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents is a body for developing and setting computer software standards for heterogeneous and interacting agents and agent-based systems....

 award for her performance. In 2004, Williams received a Best Actress BAFTA nomination for her performance in the BBC drama May 33, in which she portrayed a young woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....

. The role also earned her a Royal Television Society
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

 Best Actress nomination.

Other recent television appearances include supporting roles in the Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie
Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

 adaptations Sparkling Cyanide
Sparkling Cyanide
Sparkling Cyanide is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1945 under the title of Remembered Death and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in the December of the same year under Christie's original title...

(2003) and By the Pricking of My Thumbs (2006), and guest roles in series such as Silent Witness
Silent Witness
Silent Witness is a BBC crime thriller series focusing on a team of forensic pathology experts and their investigations into various crimes. First broadcast in February 1996, the series is still airing to the present day, with a fifteenth series expected to air in January 2012. The series was...

(2002), Heartbeat (2002), The Last Detective
The Last Detective
The Last Detective is an ITV drama starring Peter Davison as Dangerous Davies. The first series aired in 2003 with three more seasons succeeding this...

(2005), and A Touch of Frost
A Touch of Frost (TV series)
A Touch of Frost is a television detective series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV from 1992 until 2010, initially based on the Frost novels by R. D. Wingfield....

(2005).

In September 2009, Williams joined the cast of the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 comedy drama series Doc Martin
Doc Martin
Doc Martin is a British television comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes in the title role. It was created by Mark Crowdy, Craig Ferguson and Dominic Minghella. The show is filmed on location in the fishing village of Port Isaac, Cornwall, United Kingdom, with filming of most interior scenes...

. Williams plays Edith Montgomery, an old flame of the eponymous Dr Martin Ellingham, played by Martin Clunes
Martin Clunes
Alexander Martin Clunes is an English actor and comedian. Clunes is perhaps best known for his roles as Gary Strang in Men Behaving Badly, Doctor Martin Ellingham in Doc Martin and the title character in Reggie Perrin....

.

Director

Williams has been directing short films since 2002, her debut being Feathers (2002), which was based on a short story by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver
Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

. In 2008, her short film, The Stronger (2007), was nominated for the Best Short Film Award
Award
An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signifiedby trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons...

 at the BAFTA Film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 Awards. In 2009, Williams directed Dog Alone, a dialogue-free short film which was broadcast as part of British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....

's Ten Minute Tales season.

Personal life

Williams lives in West Hampstead
West Hampstead
West Hampstead is an area in northwest London, England, situated between Childs Hill to the north, Frognal and Hampstead to the north-east, Swiss Cottage to the east, and South Hampstead to the south. Until the late 19th century, the locale was a small village called West End...

 with her second husband, writer/producer Guy Hibbert
Guy Hibbert
Guy Hibbert is an award-winning screenwriter. He wrote the 2009 film Five Minutes of Heaven. This film was premiered at the 25th Sundance Film Festival, where Hibbert won the World Cinema Screenwriting Award.-External links:...

, and her son from a former marriage, Josh. She and her husband also run their own production company, Tilting Ground Productions.

Selected Stage Credits

Year Play Role Awards and Nominations
1991 The Revengers' Comedies
The Revengers' Comedies
The Revengers' Comedies is a play by Alan Ayckbourn. Its title references that of The Revenger's Tragedy. The play is an epic piece running more than five hours and was designed to be presented in two parts...

Karen Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer
1993 Oleanna
Oleanna (play)
Oleanna is a two-character play by David Mamet, about the power struggle between a university professor and one of his female students, who accuses him of sexual exploitation and, by doing so, spoils his chances of being accorded tenure...

Carol
1996 Skylight
Skylight (play)
Skylight is a play by British dramatist David Hare. It opened at the Royal National Theatre, Cottesloe, directed by Richard Eyre, in 1995. The production then moved to the Wyndham's Theatre for a short run from 13 February 1996, after winning the Laurence Olivier Award for the 1995...

Kyra Hollis Theatre World Special Award for Best Ensemble Performance
Theatre World Award
The Theatre World Award, first awarded for the 1945-46 season, is an American honor presented annually to actors and actresses in recognition of an outstanding New York City stage debut performance, either on Broadway or off-Broadway.-History:...

 (shared with Michael Gambon
Michael Gambon
Sir Michael John Gambon, CBE is an Irish actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. A highly respected theatre actor, Gambon is recognised for his roles as Philip Marlowe in the BBC television serial The Singing Detective, as Jules Maigret in the 1990s ITV serial Maigret, and as...

 and Christian Camargo
Christian Camargo
Christian Camargo is an American actor, perhaps best known for his role of Brian Moser in the Showtime drama Dexter.-Early life:...

)
Nominated - Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The award has been presented since 1947, and is for performance in new productions or revivals.-1940s:...


Nominated - Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress
Nominated - Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play
The Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play was first awarded at the 1974–1975 Drama Desk Awards and has been awarded every year since...

2001 The Homecoming
The Homecoming
The Homecoming is a two-act play written in 1964 by Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and first published in 1965. The original Broadway production won the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play and its 40th-anniversary Broadway production at the Cort Theatre was nominated for a 2008 Tony Award for "Best Revival...

Ruth
2005 As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...

Rosalind
Rosalind (As You Like It)
Rosalind is a fictional character and the romantic female lead in the comedy As You Like It by William Shakespeare.She is the daughter of the exiled Duke Senior and niece to his usurping brother Duke Frederick. After angering her uncle, she leaves his court for exile in the Forest of Arden...

2007 Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular
Absurd Person Singular is a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. Divided into three acts, it documents the changing fortunes of three married couples...

Eva
2008 The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea
The Lady from the Sea is a play written in 1888 by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen.Kvinnan från havet is a ballet by choreographer Birgit Cullberg, and based on Ibsen's play...

Ellida Wangel
2009 God of Carnage
God of Carnage
God of Carnage is a play by Yasmina Reza. It is about two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other at a public park, who meet to discuss the matter in a civilized manner. However, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish, resulting in the evening devolving...

Véronique
2010 Earthquakes in London
Earthquakes in London
Earthquakes in London is a play by Mike Bartlett. It received its world premiere at the Royal National's Cottesloe Theatre on 4 August 2010, following previews from 29 July 2010. The production was directed by Rupert Goold in a co-production with Headlong....

Sarah

Selected Television Credits

Year Title Role Awards and Nominations
1993 Mr Wroe's Virgins Joanna
1994 Seaforth Paula Longman
1997 The Uninvited Melissa Gates
2001 The Russian Bride Natasha Cherniavskaya Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels Award for Best Actress
Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels
The International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes , founded in 1987 by Michel Mitrani , was first held in Cannes in October 1987....

2003 Sparkling Cyanide
Sparkling Cyanide
Sparkling Cyanide is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in February 1945 under the title of Remembered Death and in UK by the Collins Crime Club in the December of the same year under Christie's original title...

Ruth Lessing
2004 May 33 Ella Wilson Nominated - British Academy Television Award for Best Actress
British Academy Television Awards 2005
The 2005 British Academy Television Awards were held on Sunday 17 April at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London. The ceremony was hosted by Irish comedian and television presenter Graham Norton.-Winners:*Best Actor...


Nominated - Royal Television Society Award for Best Actress
Royal Television Society
The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

2006 Marple: By the Pricking of My Thumbs Nellie Bligh
2009 Doc Martin
Doc Martin
Doc Martin is a British television comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes in the title role. It was created by Mark Crowdy, Craig Ferguson and Dominic Minghella. The show is filmed on location in the fishing village of Port Isaac, Cornwall, United Kingdom, with filming of most interior scenes...

Edith Montgomery

Selected filmography

Year Title Role
1993 Dirty Weekend Bella
1996 Different for Girls
Different for Girls
Different for Girls is a 1996 British/French comedy film in which one of the protagonists is a transsexual woman. The film is directed by Richard Spence and written by Tony Marchant, starring Rupert Graves and Steven Mackintosh.-Plot:...

Defence Solicitor
1997 The Fifth Province Diana de Brie
Firelight
Firelight
Firelight is a 1997 period romance/drama film written and directed by William Nicholson, and starring Sophie Marceau and Stephen Dillane. This was Nicholson's first and only film as a director.- Plot :...

Constance
1998 Shot Through the Heart
Shot through the heart
Shot Through the Heart is a 1998 TV film directed by David Attwood, shown on the BBC and HBO in 1998, which covers the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War...

Maida
2000 The King is Alive
The King is Alive
The King Is Alive is the fourth film to be done according to the Dogme 95 rules. It is directed by Kristian Levring. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.- Synopsis :...

Amanda
2001 Chica de Rio
Chica de Río
Girl from Rio is a 2001 film, written and directed by Christopher Monger, starring Hugh Laurie, Vanessa Nunes, Santiago Segura, Lia Williams, and Patrick Barlow.-Plot:...

Cathy
2007 Blanche-Neige, la suite Sleeping Beauty
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is a 2007 British film starring Tom Berenger, Joely Richardson, Luke Ward-Wilkinson, Aran Bell, Benjamin Eli and Saoirse Ronan....

Joan Tyler

External links

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