Fay Ripley
Encyclopedia
Fay Ripley is an English actress and recipe author. Born in Wimbledon, London
, Ripley is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
(1990). Her first professional role was in the chorus of a pantomime version of Around the World in 80 Days. Ripley's early film and television appearances were limited, so she supplemented her earnings by working as a children's entertainer and by selling menswear door-to-door. After her scenes as a prostitute were cut from Frankenstein (1994), Ripley gained her first major film role playing Karen Hughes in Mute Witness
(1995).
In 1996, Ripley was cast in her breakthrough role of Jenny Gifford in the ITV
series Cold Feet
. Initially a supporting role in the pilot episode
, Ripley's character was expanded when a series was commissioned in 1998. She stayed with the show for three full series before leaving to take more varied roles and to spend more time with her family. She returned for a guest appearance in the fifth series. After leaving Cold Feet, Ripley played a succession of leading roles in comedies and dramas including Green-Eyed Monster (2001), I Saw You (2002), The Stretford Wives
(2002), and Dead Gorgeous (2002). Each role won her critical acclaim. In 2006, she filmed a leading role in the ITV drama Bon Voyage
, before taking time away from acting after the birth of her second child. Ripley returned to television in 2009, starring as human resources manager Christine Frances in the ITV comedy drama Monday Monday
, and Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes
in BBC One
's Reggie Perrin.
Ripley's first recipe book, Fay's Family Food, was published in 2009 to a warm reception. She is married to actor Daniel Lapaine
, with whom she has two children—a daughter and a son—and is an advocate of several charities and causes.
, south-west London
to Bev and Tina Ripley (née Forster) on 26 February 1966. Her father was a successful businessman, and brother of 1960s pop singer Twinkle
, and her mother an antiques dealer. They separated when Ripley was two years old and both remarried, so Ripley spent her childhood moving around Surrey
between two families. She was the only child from her parents' marriage but had several half-brothers and sisters from their new relationships. In her early life, she lived in various Surrey towns, including Walton-on-Thames
, Weybridge
, Esher
and Cobham
. Her father wanted her to have a good education so, despite the family's Protestant religion, sent her to various Catholic convent schools around the county. One was St Maur's convent school in Weybridge, which she attended with Liza Tarbuck
. Ripley did not feel academically challenged there, and later declared the school mediocre.
At school, Ripley enjoyed drama lessons, spurred on by the positive remarks she received from her drama teacher Susan Ford. She said of Ford, "When I was 15, one of the few people who said, 'Well done', was my drama teacher, and she was really brilliant. She was a powerful woman. Those women change your life. You always remember them. There was something about her. She basically made me feel very good about myself as a 15-year-old girl." Abandoning her childhood ambition to become a nurse, Ripley decided to go into acting. Her father wanted to send her to a finishing school
in Switzerland but, in an effort to rebel from her middle-class Home Counties
background, Ripley instead went to a local state college in Surrey, where she took A-levels
in communication studies, art, and drama. During her time at the college, Ripley performed her own small shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In an effort to "bring Brecht
to the masses", she performed The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
at the 1983 festival.
After completing her A-levels, Ripley sought entry to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
. It took her three attempts before she was accepted onto an acting course at the age of 20. While at drama school, Ripley lived in a flat in Streatham
, South London, during a time she described as "horrible and penniless". To support herself financially, she sold menswear door-to-door, timeshares on Kensington High Street
and Oxford Street
, worked as a receptionist at a health club, and spent five years as children's entertainer "Miss Chief the Clown". As Miss Chief, Ripley performed magic tricks and painted faces at children's parties. The work paid off when she was able to get a mortgage on her first flat, stating clown as her occupation.
during the 1990–91 pantomime season. She had ten lines in Japanese. Her next role came at the end of the year in the Manchester Royal Exchange
's production of Medea
. Ripley recalled, "It was only my second job, and I took it all very seriously, in my Greek sarong and my torch of fire, having to burble in tongues."
Ripley's early television and film career was characterised by minor roles as prostitutes or mistresses; in what was to be her film debut, she filmed two scenes as a prostitute in the film Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh
, 1994). In the first scene, her character was strangled by the creature (played by Robert De Niro
's stand-in). The second scene featured De Niro himself, though Ripley's character was lying dead in a mortuary throughout. Pleased with what looked like her breakout role, Ripley bought a dress for the premiere, though she was distraught when Branagh sent her a card apologising for cutting her scenes from the finished film. The same year, she filmed the role of Karen Hughes, the sister of a mute character who believes she sees a murder, in the low-budget film Mute Witness
(Anthony Waller
, 1995). After Mute Witnesss British television premiere in 1999, a Daily Record
critic wrote that Ripley's dramatic scenes were not as good as her comic ones.
In 1995, she appeared in an episode of Channel 4
's Alan Davies
vehicle One for the Road and made her last theatre appearance as a cast member in the Bush Theatre
's Two Lips, Indifferent Red. In 1996, she had a role in Stephen Poliakoff
's Frontiers, and played a club barmaid in Dennis Potter
's penultimate television series Karaoke. The following year she had roles in the comedy film Roseanna's Grave
(Paul Weiland, 1997), an episode of The Bill
—as a woman whose nanny is accused of stealing from her—and a two-part episode of the Kevin Whately
series The Broker's Man as a police officer. Her role in The Broker's Man was one of the few occasions on which Ripley played a police officer; she has frequently declined offers of similar roles because she does not want to "summon up the misery" to play a character that performs post-mortem examinations or investigates murders when she could be starring in more true to life and funny programmes.
's Cold Feet
, a television pilot
about the romances of three couples living in Manchester
. She believed she was reading for the role of Rachel, the "young, pretty one", and was surprised to discover that she was wanted for Jenny, the "northern housewife". In the audition, she performed with an inelegant approximation of a local Manchester accent. The producers found her approach to the role refreshing from other actresses, who were seen as too "finger-wagging". Ripley won the role, and appeared opposite John Thomson and James Nesbitt
in the programme. After the pilot won an award, ITV's director of programmes commissioned a series of Cold Feet
, so Ripley worked on improving her character's accent by speaking to locals and mimicking their speech. Her supporting character from the pilot episode was given a bigger role in the series; in the first episode (broadcast in 1998), Jenny gives birth to her first child. At that time, Ripley had never experienced childbirth, so copied birth scenes she had seen in other television series. An Independent
review of the first series in November 1998 noted, "Fay Ripley has a range of quirky mannerisms that are more reminiscent of Elaine in Seinfeld
than of any other Brit-com woman." The character also gained Ripley public recognition; after being noticed by a member of staff in Marks & Spencer
, she was so pleased that she invited the woman to dinner.
Ripley's performance in the first series won her a nomination for Best TV Comedy Actress at the British Comedy Awards 1999. For her performance in the third series
(2000), in which her character separates from her husband and dates another man (played by Ben Miles
), she was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress
. During pre-production of the fourth series
(2001), Ripley announced to the producers that she would be leaving the show, partly because she did not want to spend five months living in Manchester away from her home in London and wanted to spend more time with her husband, and partly to take other roles which she would otherwise not be able to do. She asked the writer Mike Bullen
to either kill off Jenny or have her lose a limb. Bullen refused and instead wrote a plot in which Jenny moves to New York. Ripley returned to the series for a guest appearance in the final episode (2003). She had originally planned not to return to the show, but reprised the role so she could have an on-screen record of the final stages of her pregnancy with her first child.
In 2000, Ripley appeared in the British dogme film The Announcement, as well as playing lead female character Grace Bingley—opposite Paul Rhys
—in the Granada television pilot I Saw You, which used many of the same production staff as Cold Feet. David Belcher of The Herald
called Ripley "perfectly scatty, tousled and self-sufficient" in the role, and Joe Joseph of The Times
complimented her comic timing. Ripley returned to I Saw You for a three-episode miniseries in 2002. She considers I Saw You, in which she acted alongside her husband Daniel Lapaine
, the television show she is most proud to have worked on.
thriller Green-Eyed Monster, which was broadcast in September 2001. She researched her character, a murderer, by visiting a coroner. Guardian
critic Gareth McLean wrote of her performance, "Ripley did a good job of exorcising the ghost of Jenny Gifford [...] by coolly cranking up the insane desperation and needy malevolence to an impressive degree." In 2002, she played domestic abuse
victim Donna Massey in Danny Brocklehurst
's The Stretford Wives
. Ripley was initially not eager to play another character from around Manchester so soon after leaving Cold Feet, but she changed her mind after reading the script. She did not research spousal abuse to play her character, a woman struggling to bring up her two children in a run-down house while her husband is imprisoned, because she did not find it difficult to "work out what it's like to be scared and want to protect your kids". Also in 2002, Ripley played Rose Bell in the ITV post-war period drama Dead Gorgeous, alongside Helen McCrory
. The following year, she provided the voice of Meg in the ITV adaptation of the Meg and Mog
children's books, before playing Jill in the third series of the BBC One
sitcom Bedtime
at the end of 2003.
In 2004, Ripley had her first of three on-screen partnerships with Martin Clunes
, playing Jane White in the CBBC
adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman
. The following year, she played the guest role of corrupt police inspector Sam Phillips in the BBC TV series Hustle
, a role that received praise from The Times and The Sun
newspapers. In 2006, Ripley played the role of child abductor Linda Holder in the two-part ITV drama Bon Voyage
, starring alongside Ben Miles, Rachael Blake
and Daniel Ryan
. She was offered the part without having to audition, and took it because she wanted the opportunity to play an antagonist. She liked the style of Canadian director John Fawcett
in making the thriller, as it differed to that of other British thrillers, which she believed were poorly filmed. Ripley filmed the role in Canada during the later weeks of her second pregnancy, so her character was dressed in baggy clothes to hide her bump. Her pregnancy also caused changes to the script; originally her character was to run through a forest, fall off a cliff and "die a gruesome death". Reviewing, Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent and Gareth McLean of The Guardian noted that Ripley's pregnancy was poorly disguised. In complimenting the performance of the whole cast, Brian McIver of the Daily Record praised Ripley's portrayal of Linda as "scary but sympathetic".
Bon Voyage marked Ripley's last television acting appearance until 2009. During that time she appeared as a guest on panel shows and talk shows. In 2009, she returned to television screens as Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes' eponymous character in the BBC One sitcom Reggie Perrin. She took the role because she had previously worked with Clunes and the writer Simon Nye
. As the series was Ripley's first studio sitcom, she approached the role with apprehension; she told The Independent on Sunday, "I basically just hung off Martin's coat-tails and hoped for the best." Ripley compared Nicola to Reggie's house-bound wife Elizabeth in the original series, noting that the modern character needed a job and independence from her husband because of changes in society. She reprised the role in the second series in 2010, after which the series was cancelled. 2009 also saw the broadcast of Monday Monday
, an ITV comedy drama series in which Ripley plays Christine Frances, an alcoholic human resources manager at a supermarket head office that moves from London to Leeds
. She took the role because it was different to characters she had previously played.
, critic Stewart Hennessey called Ripley's presenting fantastic and called the show itself "utterly without any intelligent merit whatsoever. It is just unmissable because the people on it are hilariously stupid. Set the vid, show it at parties." Ripley said of the show retrospectively, "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done." In 2003, she presented a short film advocating Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
for the BBC's Big Read series and in 2009, she presented an episode of the Blighty documentary series My Brilliant Britain.
In 2004, she appeared on the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment of Top Gear, where she discussed her car history with presenter Jeremy Clarkson
. On her celebrity lap of the Top Gear test track, she achieved a lap time of 1:53, making her 38th on the Suzuki Liana
leader board. The same year, she participated in a major advertising venture by The National Lottery
, playing "Lady Luck" alongside a unicorn voiced by Graham Norton
. In 2008, she appeared alongside Martin Clunes in a series of advertisements for Tesco Direct and, since 2009, has starred with Mark Addy
in a series of adverts for Tesco's various brands.
In 2007, Ripley announced that she would be writing a cookbook about family food. She said, "I want to help people prepare good food for their kids, really practical stuff that's easy, quick, healthy and you can whizz up in the blender for the baby." Fay's Family Food was published by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books
, in April 2009 and was selected by Marie-Claire Digby of The Irish Times
as a "summer read". Ripley's second book, entitled Fay's Dinners, is to be published in April 2012. She has been approached by production companies to make a television series.
when the two were starring in the eponymous roles in a college production of Romeo and Juliet
in 1983. They began an 11-year relationship that ended when Ripley was 27. Ripley said of the relationship in 2006, "We were just kids when we met and, therefore, the relationship had more than run its course." She was single for five years, before being introduced to Australian actor Daniel Lapaine
at a party hosted by mutual friends. Neither of them thought the other was interested in dating and they drifted apart. After meeting again on separate holidays in New York, they began dating and married in October 2001 in a ceremony in Tuscany
, Italy. Ripley gave birth to the couple's first child in October 2002, a daughter they named Parker. She gave birth to their first son, Sonny, in October 2006.
Ripley is a patron of several charities and causes. In 2007 she took part in What's it going to take?
, a campaign by Women's Aid to raise awareness of domestic abuse against women. She visited Tanzania
with ActionAid
in October 2008 to raise awareness of child sponsorship. While in the country, Ripley visited community projects set up by ActionAid in Bagamoyo
and Mkuranga
. Ripley was already sponsoring a child and had been asked by ActionAid to participate in a visit but had always declined because of conflicts with her work. Ripley also fronted a "Climate Action Now" protest with novelist Rebecca Frayn and actress Rula Lenska
in 2008, opposing government support of the then planned third runway
at Heathrow Airport
.
Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon is a district in the south west area of London, England, located south of Wandsworth, and east of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated within Greater London. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, and contains Wimbledon Common, one of the largest areas...
, Ripley is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...
(1990). Her first professional role was in the chorus of a pantomime version of Around the World in 80 Days. Ripley's early film and television appearances were limited, so she supplemented her earnings by working as a children's entertainer and by selling menswear door-to-door. After her scenes as a prostitute were cut from Frankenstein (1994), Ripley gained her first major film role playing Karen Hughes in Mute Witness
Mute Witness
Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995...
(1995).
In 1996, Ripley was cast in her breakthrough role of Jenny Gifford in 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...
series Cold Feet
Cold Feet
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...
. Initially a supporting role in the pilot episode
Pilot (Cold Feet)
Cold Feet is a British television pilot directed by Declan Lowney. It stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear...
, Ripley's character was expanded when a series was commissioned in 1998. She stayed with the show for three full series before leaving to take more varied roles and to spend more time with her family. She returned for a guest appearance in the fifth series. After leaving Cold Feet, Ripley played a succession of leading roles in comedies and dramas including Green-Eyed Monster (2001), I Saw You (2002), The Stretford Wives
The Stretford Wives
The Stretford Wives is a British drama film made by the BBC. It was first broadcast on BBC One in August 2002 and has not been released on DVD. The film revolves around the lives of three sisters – played by Fay Ripley, Claire Rushbrook, and Lindsey Coulson – who live in Stretford,...
(2002), and Dead Gorgeous (2002). Each role won her critical acclaim. In 2006, she filmed a leading role in the ITV drama Bon Voyage
Bon Voyage (TV drama)
Bon Voyage was a 2006 TV drama written by Oliver Brown and directed by John Fawcett. It starred Fay Ripley, Ben Miles, Daniel Ryan and Rachael Blake....
, before taking time away from acting after the birth of her second child. Ripley returned to television in 2009, starring as human resources manager Christine Frances in the ITV comedy drama Monday Monday
Monday Monday (TV series)
Monday Monday is an ITV comedy drama. It stars Fay Ripley, Jenny Agutter, Neil Stuke, Holly Aird, Morven Christie, Tom Ellis and Miranda Hart.It is set in the head office of a supermarket that has fallen on hard times and had to re-locate its staff from London to Leeds...
, and Nicola Perrin alongside 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....
in BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
's Reggie Perrin.
Ripley's first recipe book, Fay's Family Food, was published in 2009 to a warm reception. She is married to actor Daniel Lapaine
Daniel Lapaine
Daniel Lapaine is an Australian actor.Born in Sydney, Australia, Lapaine graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992. In 1994, he played David Van Arckle in P. J. Hogan's Muriel's Wedding...
, with whom she has two children—a daughter and a son—and is an advocate of several charities and causes.
Early life
Ripley was born in WimbledonWimbledon, London
Wimbledon is a district in the south west area of London, England, located south of Wandsworth, and east of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated within Greater London. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, and contains Wimbledon Common, one of the largest areas...
, south-west 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...
to Bev and Tina Ripley (née Forster) on 26 February 1966. Her father was a successful businessman, and brother of 1960s pop singer Twinkle
Twinkle (singer)
Twinkle is an English singer-songwriter, primarily in the 1960s. Twinkle's most famous songs were "Terry" and "Golden Lights".-Career:...
, and her mother an antiques dealer. They separated when Ripley was two years old and both remarried, so Ripley spent her childhood moving around Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
between two families. She was the only child from her parents' marriage but had several half-brothers and sisters from their new relationships. In her early life, she lived in various Surrey towns, including Walton-on-Thames
Walton-on-Thames
Walton-on-Thames is a town in the Elmbridge borough of Surrey in South East England. The town is located south west of Charing Cross and is between the towns of Weybridge and Molesey. It is situated on the River Thames between Sunbury Lock and Shepperton Lock.- History :The name "Walton" is...
, Weybridge
Weybridge
Weybridge is a town in the Elmbridge district of Surrey in South East England. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the River Wey, from which it gets its name...
, Esher
Esher
Esher is a town in the Surrey borough of Elmbridge in South East England near the River Mole. It is a very prosperous part of the Greater London Urban Area, largely suburban in character, and is situated 14.1 miles south west of Charing Cross....
and Cobham
Cobham, Surrey
Cobham is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, about south-west of central London and north of Leatherhead. Elmbridge has been acclaimed by the Daily Mail as the best place to live in the UK, and Cobham is a prosperous part of the London commuter belt...
. Her father wanted her to have a good education so, despite the family's Protestant religion, sent her to various Catholic convent schools around the county. One was St Maur's convent school in Weybridge, which she attended with Liza Tarbuck
Liza Tarbuck
Liza Tarbuck is an English actress and television and radio presenter, and daughter of comedian Jimmy Tarbuck.She trained at the National Youth Theatre and RADA graduating in 1986 alongside Clive Owen, Rebecca Pidgeon and Serena Harragin.-Acting:...
. Ripley did not feel academically challenged there, and later declared the school mediocre.
At school, Ripley enjoyed drama lessons, spurred on by the positive remarks she received from her drama teacher Susan Ford. She said of Ford, "When I was 15, one of the few people who said, 'Well done', was my drama teacher, and she was really brilliant. She was a powerful woman. Those women change your life. You always remember them. There was something about her. She basically made me feel very good about myself as a 15-year-old girl." Abandoning her childhood ambition to become a nurse, Ripley decided to go into acting. Her father wanted to send her to a finishing school
Finishing school
A finishing school is "a private school for girls that emphasises training in cultural and social activities." The name reflects that it follows on from ordinary school and is intended to complete the educational experience, with classes primarily on etiquette...
in Switzerland but, in an effort to rebel from her middle-class Home Counties
Home Counties
The home counties is a term which refers to the counties of South East England and the East of England which border London, but do not include the capital city itself...
background, Ripley instead went to a local state college in Surrey, where she took A-levels
GCE Advanced Level
The Advanced Level General Certificate of Education, commonly referred to as an A-level, is a qualification offered by education institutions in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Cameroon, and the Cayman Islands...
in communication studies, art, and drama. During her time at the college, Ripley performed her own small shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In an effort to "bring Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
to the masses", she performed The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a play by the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht, originally written in 1941...
at the 1983 festival.
After completing her A-levels, Ripley sought entry to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Guildhall School of Music and Drama is an independent music and dramatic arts school which was founded in 1880 in London, England. Students can pursue courses in Music, Opera, Drama and Technical Theatre Arts.-History:...
. It took her three attempts before she was accepted onto an acting course at the age of 20. While at drama school, Ripley lived in a flat in Streatham
Streatham
Streatham is a district in Surrey, England, located in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
, South London, during a time she described as "horrible and penniless". To support herself financially, she sold menswear door-to-door, timeshares on Kensington High Street
Kensington High Street
Kensington High Street is the main shopping street in Kensington, west London. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London....
and Oxford Street
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...
, worked as a receptionist at a health club, and spent five years as children's entertainer "Miss Chief the Clown". As Miss Chief, Ripley performed magic tricks and painted faces at children's parties. The work paid off when she was able to get a mortgage on her first flat, stating clown as her occupation.
Early performances
Ripley graduated from drama school in 1990. Her first role afterwards was playing Osatko in the chorus of Around the World in 80 Days at the Liverpool PlayhouseLiverpool Playhouse
The Liverpool Playhouse is a theatre in Williamson Square in the city of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It originated in 1866 as a music hall, and in 1911 developed into a repertory theatre. As such it nurtured the early careers of many actors and actresses, some of which went on to achieve...
during the 1990–91 pantomime season. She had ten lines in Japanese. Her next role came at the end of the year in the Manchester Royal Exchange
Royal Exchange, Manchester
The Royal Exchange is a grade II listed Victorian building in Manchester, England. It is located in the city centre on the land bounded by St Ann’s Square, Exchange Street, Market Street, Cross Street and Old Bank Street...
's production of Medea
Medea (play)
Medea is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed...
. Ripley recalled, "It was only my second job, and I took it all very seriously, in my Greek sarong and my torch of fire, having to burble in tongues."
Ripley's early television and film career was characterised by minor roles as prostitutes or mistresses; in what was to be her film debut, she filmed two scenes as a prostitute in the film Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
, 1994). In the first scene, her character was strangled by the creature (played by Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
's stand-in). The second scene featured De Niro himself, though Ripley's character was lying dead in a mortuary throughout. Pleased with what looked like her breakout role, Ripley bought a dress for the premiere, though she was distraught when Branagh sent her a card apologising for cutting her scenes from the finished film. The same year, she filmed the role of Karen Hughes, the sister of a mute character who believes she sees a murder, in the low-budget film Mute Witness
Mute Witness
Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995...
(Anthony Waller
Anthony Waller
-Filmography:*Mute Witness *An American Werewolf in Paris *Nine Miles Down *The Singularity Is Near -External links:*...
, 1995). After Mute Witnesss British television premiere in 1999, a Daily Record
Daily Record (Scotland)
The Daily Record is a Scottish tabloid newspaper based in Glasgow. It had been the best-selling daily paper in Scotland for many years with a paid circulation in August 2011 of 307,794 . It is now outsold by its arch-rival the Scottish Sun which in September 2010 had a circulation of 339,586 in...
critic wrote that Ripley's dramatic scenes were not as good as her comic ones.
In 1995, she appeared in an episode of Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's Alan Davies
Alan Davies
Alan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...
vehicle One for the Road and made her last theatre appearance as a cast member in the Bush Theatre
Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...
's Two Lips, Indifferent Red. In 1996, she had a role in Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff
Stephen Poliakoff, CBE, FRSL is an acclaimed British playwright, director and scriptwriter, widely judged amongst Britain's foremost television dramatists.-Early life and career:...
's Frontiers, and played a club barmaid in Dennis Potter
Dennis Potter
Dennis Christopher George Potter was an English dramatist, best known for The Singing Detective. His widely acclaimed television dramas mixed fantasy and reality, the personal and the social. He was particularly fond of using themes and images from popular culture.-Biography:Dennis Potter was born...
's penultimate television series Karaoke. The following year she had roles in the comedy film Roseanna's Grave
Roseanna's Grave
Roseanna's Grave is a 1997 film directed by Paul Weiland. In his review, Roger Ebert concludes that Roseanna's Grave "isn't of much consequence, perhaps, and the gears of the plot are occasionally visible as they turn...
(Paul Weiland, 1997), an episode of The Bill
The Bill
The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...
—as a woman whose nanny is accused of stealing from her—and a two-part episode of the Kevin Whately
Kevin Whately
Kevin Whately is an English actor.Whately is known for his starring role as Neville Hope in the British television comedy Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, his role as Dr Jack Kerruish in the drama series Peak Practice, and as Robert "Robbie" Lewis in the crime dramas Inspector Morse and...
series The Broker's Man as a police officer. Her role in The Broker's Man was one of the few occasions on which Ripley played a police officer; she has frequently declined offers of similar roles because she does not want to "summon up the misery" to play a character that performs post-mortem examinations or investigates murders when she could be starring in more true to life and funny programmes.
Breakthrough roles
In 1996, Ripley auditioned for Granada TelevisionGranada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
's Cold Feet
Pilot (Cold Feet)
Cold Feet is a British television pilot directed by Declan Lowney. It stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear...
, a television pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...
about the romances of three couples living in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
. She believed she was reading for the role of Rachel, the "young, pretty one", and was surprised to discover that she was wanted for Jenny, the "northern housewife". In the audition, she performed with an inelegant approximation of a local Manchester accent. The producers found her approach to the role refreshing from other actresses, who were seen as too "finger-wagging". Ripley won the role, and appeared opposite John Thomson and James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster...
in the programme. After the pilot won an award, ITV's director of programmes commissioned a series of Cold Feet
Cold Feet
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...
, so Ripley worked on improving her character's accent by speaking to locals and mimicking their speech. Her supporting character from the pilot episode was given a bigger role in the series; in the first episode (broadcast in 1998), Jenny gives birth to her first child. At that time, Ripley had never experienced childbirth, so copied birth scenes she had seen in other television series. An Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
review of the first series in November 1998 noted, "Fay Ripley has a range of quirky mannerisms that are more reminiscent of Elaine in Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
than of any other Brit-com woman." The character also gained Ripley public recognition; after being noticed by a member of staff in Marks & Spencer
Marks & Spencer
Marks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...
, she was so pleased that she invited the woman to dinner.
Ripley's performance in the first series won her a nomination for Best TV Comedy Actress at the British Comedy Awards 1999. For her performance in the third series
Cold Feet (series 3)
The third series of the British comedy drama television series Cold Feet was first broadcast on the ITV network from 12 November to 26 December 2000. The eight episodes were written by Mike Bullen and David Nicholls, produced by Christine Langan and Spencer Campbell, and directed by Simon Delaney,...
(2000), in which her character separates from her husband and dates another man (played by Ben Miles
Ben Miles
Ben Miles is an English actor, best known for his starring role as Patrick Maitland in the British TV comedy Coupling, from 2000 to 2004.-Life and career:...
), she was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress
British Academy Television Award for Best Actress
- 1950s :*1955 Googie Withers*1956 Virginia McKenna*1957 Rosalie Crutchley*1958 Gwen Watford*1959 Catherine Lacey- 1960s :*1960 Catherine Lacey*1961 Billie Whitelaw*1962 Ruth Dunning*1963 Brenda Bruce*1964 Vivien Merchant*1965 Katherine Blake...
. During pre-production of the fourth series
Cold Feet (series 4)
The fourth series of the British comedy drama television series Cold Feet was aired on the ITV network from 18 November to 10 December 2001. Eight episodes were broadcast over four weeks and the final episode was extended to 72 minutes...
(2001), Ripley announced to the producers that she would be leaving the show, partly because she did not want to spend five months living in Manchester away from her home in London and wanted to spend more time with her husband, and partly to take other roles which she would otherwise not be able to do. She asked the writer Mike Bullen
Mike Bullen
Mike Bullen is an English-born screenwriter. Bullen grew up in the West Midlands of England, attending the Solihull School and later Magdalene College, Cambridge. He left with a degree in history of art and became a radio producer for the BBC World Service...
to either kill off Jenny or have her lose a limb. Bullen refused and instead wrote a plot in which Jenny moves to New York. Ripley returned to the series for a guest appearance in the final episode (2003). She had originally planned not to return to the show, but reprised the role so she could have an on-screen record of the final stages of her pregnancy with her first child.
In 2000, Ripley appeared in the British dogme film The Announcement, as well as playing lead female character Grace Bingley—opposite Paul Rhys
Paul Rhys
Paul Rhys is a British television, film and theatre actor.Rhys was born in Wales and studied at RADA, leaving with the Bancroft Gold Medal in 1987. While there, he obtained his first major screen role, in Absolute Beginners . Since then he has seldom been off the stage and screen...
—in the Granada television pilot I Saw You, which used many of the same production staff as Cold Feet. David Belcher of The Herald
The Herald (Glasgow)
The Herald is a broadsheet newspaper published Monday to Saturday in Glasgow, and available throughout Scotland. As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 47,226, giving it a lead over Scotland's other 'quality' national daily, The Scotsman, published in Edinburgh.The 1889 to 1906 editions...
called Ripley "perfectly scatty, tousled and self-sufficient" in the role, and Joe Joseph of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
complimented her comic timing. Ripley returned to I Saw You for a three-episode miniseries in 2002. She considers I Saw You, in which she acted alongside her husband Daniel Lapaine
Daniel Lapaine
Daniel Lapaine is an Australian actor.Born in Sydney, Australia, Lapaine graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992. In 1994, he played David Van Arckle in P. J. Hogan's Muriel's Wedding...
, the television show she is most proud to have worked on.
Leading roles
Having left Cold Feet, Ripley began to take on more leading roles; her first role was as housewife Deanna in the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
thriller Green-Eyed Monster, which was broadcast in September 2001. She researched her character, a murderer, by visiting a coroner. Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
critic Gareth McLean wrote of her performance, "Ripley did a good job of exorcising the ghost of Jenny Gifford [...] by coolly cranking up the insane desperation and needy malevolence to an impressive degree." In 2002, she played domestic abuse
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
victim Donna Massey in Danny Brocklehurst
Danny Brocklehurst
Danny Brocklehurst is a BAFTA and International Emmy -winning English screenwriter. Brocklehurst worked as a journalist for several years before becoming a full-time screenwriter.He has written acclaimed television drama...
's The Stretford Wives
The Stretford Wives
The Stretford Wives is a British drama film made by the BBC. It was first broadcast on BBC One in August 2002 and has not been released on DVD. The film revolves around the lives of three sisters – played by Fay Ripley, Claire Rushbrook, and Lindsey Coulson – who live in Stretford,...
. Ripley was initially not eager to play another character from around Manchester so soon after leaving Cold Feet, but she changed her mind after reading the script. She did not research spousal abuse to play her character, a woman struggling to bring up her two children in a run-down house while her husband is imprisoned, because she did not find it difficult to "work out what it's like to be scared and want to protect your kids". Also in 2002, Ripley played Rose Bell in the ITV post-war period drama Dead Gorgeous, alongside Helen McCrory
Helen McCrory
Helen Elizabeth McCrory is a British actress. She portrayed Cherie Blair in both the 2006 film The Queen and the 2010 film The Special Relationship. She also portrayed Narcissa Malfoy in the final three Harry Potter films....
. The following year, she provided the voice of Meg in the ITV adaptation of the Meg and Mog
Meg and Mog
Meg and Mog are the heroes of a series of children’s books written by Helen Nicoll and illustrated by Jan Pienkowski. First published in the 1970s, the books are about Meg, a witch whose spells always seem to go wrong, her striped cat Mog, and their friend Owl....
children's books, before playing Jill in the third series of the BBC One
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
sitcom Bedtime
Bedtime (TV series)
Bedtime was a British comedy-drama written and directed by Andy Hamilton and broadcast by the BBC. It ran for three series for a total of fifteen episodes between August 2001 and December 2003. The first two series had six episodes each and the third series had three episodes...
at the end of 2003.
In 2004, Ripley had her first of three on-screen partnerships with 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....
, playing Jane White in the CBBC
CBBC
CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman
Fungus the Bogeyman
Fungus the Bogeyman is a children's graphic novel by British artist Raymond Briggs. It follows one day in the life of the titular character, a working class Bogeyman with the mundane job of scaring human beings.-Plot:...
. The following year, she played the guest role of corrupt police inspector Sam Phillips in the BBC TV series Hustle
Hustle (TV series)
Hustle is a British television drama series made by Kudos Film and Television for BBC One in the United Kingdom. Created by Tony Jordan and first broadcast in 2004, the series follows a group of con artists who specialise in "long cons" – extended deceptions which require greater commitment, but...
, a role that received praise from The Times and The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
newspapers. In 2006, Ripley played the role of child abductor Linda Holder in the two-part ITV drama Bon Voyage
Bon Voyage (TV drama)
Bon Voyage was a 2006 TV drama written by Oliver Brown and directed by John Fawcett. It starred Fay Ripley, Ben Miles, Daniel Ryan and Rachael Blake....
, starring alongside Ben Miles, Rachael Blake
Rachael Blake
Rachael Morelle Blake is an Australian actress.-Early life:Blake was born in Perth. At the age of 18 months, she moved to England with her British parents only to return to Perth at age 11....
and Daniel Ryan
Daniel Ryan (actor)
Daniel Ryan is an English actor and writer.He is known for starring as Darren Alexander in the BBC drama comedy Linda Green, Andrew Gilligan in The Government Inspector, Andy Coulson in Steel River Blues and Kenny Reed in The Whistleblowers...
. She was offered the part without having to audition, and took it because she wanted the opportunity to play an antagonist. She liked the style of Canadian director John Fawcett
John Fawcett (director)
John Fawcett is a Canadian director of film and television. His best known films are the 2000 werewolf movie Ginger Snaps and the 2005 horror film The Dark...
in making the thriller, as it differed to that of other British thrillers, which she believed were poorly filmed. Ripley filmed the role in Canada during the later weeks of her second pregnancy, so her character was dressed in baggy clothes to hide her bump. Her pregnancy also caused changes to the script; originally her character was to run through a forest, fall off a cliff and "die a gruesome death". Reviewing, Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent and Gareth McLean of The Guardian noted that Ripley's pregnancy was poorly disguised. In complimenting the performance of the whole cast, Brian McIver of the Daily Record praised Ripley's portrayal of Linda as "scary but sympathetic".
Bon Voyage marked Ripley's last television acting appearance until 2009. During that time she appeared as a guest on panel shows and talk shows. In 2009, she returned to television screens as Nicola Perrin alongside Martin Clunes' eponymous character in the BBC One sitcom Reggie Perrin. She took the role because she had previously worked with Clunes and the writer Simon Nye
Simon Nye
Simon Nye is an English comic television writer, best known for creating the hit sitcom Men Behaving Badly, writing all of the four ITV Panto, co-writing the 2006 film Flushed Away, co-writing Reggie Perrin and creating the latest adaption of William Brown in the Just William CBBC...
. As the series was Ripley's first studio sitcom, she approached the role with apprehension; she told The Independent on Sunday, "I basically just hung off Martin's coat-tails and hoped for the best." Ripley compared Nicola to Reggie's house-bound wife Elizabeth in the original series, noting that the modern character needed a job and independence from her husband because of changes in society. She reprised the role in the second series in 2010, after which the series was cancelled. 2009 also saw the broadcast of Monday Monday
Monday Monday (TV series)
Monday Monday is an ITV comedy drama. It stars Fay Ripley, Jenny Agutter, Neil Stuke, Holly Aird, Morven Christie, Tom Ellis and Miranda Hart.It is set in the head office of a supermarket that has fallen on hard times and had to re-locate its staff from London to Leeds...
, an ITV comedy drama series in which Ripley plays Christine Frances, an alcoholic human resources manager at a supermarket head office that moves from London to Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
. She took the role because it was different to characters she had previously played.
Other work
During her time on Cold Feet, Ripley hosted the Channel 4 show Sofa Melt, a relationships chat show in the vein of Trisha. The show lasted for one series of 60 episodes, broadcast in 1999. In Scotland on SundayScotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by The Scotsman Publications Ltd and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate The Scotsman...
, critic Stewart Hennessey called Ripley's presenting fantastic and called the show itself "utterly without any intelligent merit whatsoever. It is just unmissable because the people on it are hilariously stupid. Set the vid, show it at parties." Ripley said of the show retrospectively, "It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done." In 2003, she presented a short film advocating Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, published on 8 July 2000.The novel won a Hugo Award in 2001, the only Harry Potter novel to do so...
for the BBC's Big Read series and in 2009, she presented an episode of the Blighty documentary series My Brilliant Britain.
In 2004, she appeared on the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment of Top Gear, where she discussed her car history with presenter Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Clarkson
Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May...
. On her celebrity lap of the Top Gear test track, she achieved a lap time of 1:53, making her 38th on the Suzuki Liana
Suzuki Aerio
The Suzuki Aerio is a compact car that was built by Suzuki Motor Corporation. It was introduced in 2001 as a replacement for the Suzuki Esteem/Baleno, with a tall 5-door SX model hatchback and a 4-door sedan body...
leader board. The same year, she participated in a major advertising venture by The National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...
, playing "Lady Luck" alongside a unicorn voiced by Graham Norton
Graham Norton
Graham William Walker, known by his stage name Graham Norton , is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist...
. In 2008, she appeared alongside Martin Clunes in a series of advertisements for Tesco Direct and, since 2009, has starred with Mark Addy
Mark Addy
Mark Addy Johnson is an English actor, best known for his roles as Detective Constable Gary Boyle in the UK sitcom The Thin Blue Line, Dave in the British film The Full Monty, father Bill Miller in the U.S...
in a series of adverts for Tesco's various brands.
In 2007, Ripley announced that she would be writing a cookbook about family food. She said, "I want to help people prepare good food for their kids, really practical stuff that's easy, quick, healthy and you can whizz up in the blender for the baby." Fay's Family Food was published by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, in April 2009 and was selected by Marie-Claire Digby of The Irish Times
The Irish Times
The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...
as a "summer read". Ripley's second book, entitled Fay's Dinners, is to be published in April 2012. She has been approached by production companies to make a television series.
Personal life
Ripley met English actor James PurefoyJames Purefoy
James Brian Mark Purefoy is an English actor best known for portraying Mark Antony in the HBO series Rome.-Early life and work:...
when the two were starring in the eponymous roles in a college production of Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
in 1983. They began an 11-year relationship that ended when Ripley was 27. Ripley said of the relationship in 2006, "We were just kids when we met and, therefore, the relationship had more than run its course." She was single for five years, before being introduced to Australian actor Daniel Lapaine
Daniel Lapaine
Daniel Lapaine is an Australian actor.Born in Sydney, Australia, Lapaine graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992. In 1994, he played David Van Arckle in P. J. Hogan's Muriel's Wedding...
at a party hosted by mutual friends. Neither of them thought the other was interested in dating and they drifted apart. After meeting again on separate holidays in New York, they began dating and married in October 2001 in a ceremony in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....
, Italy. Ripley gave birth to the couple's first child in October 2002, a daughter they named Parker. She gave birth to their first son, Sonny, in October 2006.
Ripley is a patron of several charities and causes. In 2007 she took part in What's it going to take?
What's it going to take?
What's it going to take? is a British print and poster campaign launched in 2007 by Women's Aid to boost awareness of domestic violence against women in the United Kingdom. The campaign, handled by advertising agency Grey London, comprised photographs of nine female celebrities made-up to appear as...
, a campaign by Women's Aid to raise awareness of domestic abuse against women. She visited Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
with ActionAid
ActionAid
ActionAid was founded in 1972 as a child sponsorship charity when 88 UK supporters sponsored 88 children in India and Kenya, the focus primarily being to provide children with an education. Global accounts are now reported in Euros and in 2007 and 2008 turnover was close to 180m Euros...
in October 2008 to raise awareness of child sponsorship. While in the country, Ripley visited community projects set up by ActionAid in Bagamoyo
Bagamoyo
The town of Bagamoyo, Tanzania, was founded at the end of the 18th century. It was the original capital of German East Africa and was one of the most important trading ports along the East African coast...
and Mkuranga
Mkuranga
Mkuranga is one of the 6 districts of the Pwani Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by Dar-es-Salaam, to the East by the Indian Ocean, to the South by the Rufiji District, and to the East by the Kisarawe District....
. Ripley was already sponsoring a child and had been asked by ActionAid to participate in a visit but had always declined because of conflicts with her work. Ripley also fronted a "Climate Action Now" protest with novelist Rebecca Frayn and actress Rula Lenska
Rula Lenska
Rula Lenska is an English actress. Best known for her work in the United Kingdom, she is remembered in the United States for a television advert that presented her as a celebrity, even though she was not widely known in the US at the time the advert was produced.She has appeared extensively on...
in 2008, opposing government support of the then planned third runway
Expansion of London Heathrow Airport
The expansion of London Heathrow Airport involved the proposal by BAA Limited to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow. The plan was supported by businesses, the aviation industry, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Confederation of British Industry, the Trades Union Congress and...
at Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow , in the London Borough of Hillingdon, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the third busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic, handling more international passengers than any other airport around the globe...
.
Filmography
| Year(s) | Title | Role | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | Mute Witness Mute Witness Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995... |
Karen Hughes | Feature film |
| 1995 | Rumble | Marissa | 1 episode of television series:
|
| 1995 | One for the Road | Jane | 1 episode of television series:
|
| 1996 | Karaoke | Club Barmaid | 2 episodes of television serial:
|
| 1996 | Frontiers | Elizabeth Kirsten | Television film |
| 1997 | Comedy Premieres Comedy Premieres Comedy Premieres was a programming strand of four one-off television comedies, produced by Granada Television for the ITV network and broadcast throughout 1997.- Premieres :- Production :... : Cold Feet Pilot (Cold Feet) Cold Feet is a British television pilot directed by Declan Lowney. It stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear... |
Jenny Gifford | Television pilot |
| 1997 | Rose Milne | 1 episode of television series:
|
|
| 1997 | DS Wendy Atkins | 2 episodes of television series:
|
|
| 1997 | Roseanna's Grave Roseanna's Grave Roseanna's Grave is a 1997 film directed by Paul Weiland. In his review, Roger Ebert concludes that Roseanna's Grave "isn't of much consequence, perhaps, and the gears of the plot are occasionally visible as they turn... |
Francesca | Feature film |
| 1998 | How Do You Want Me? How Do You Want Me? How Do You Want Me? is a British television sitcom, produced by Kensington Films & Television, written by Simon Nye, and directed by John Henderson.... |
Sophie | 1 episode of television series:
|
| 1998–2003 | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Jenny Gifford | 3 series of television series, 1998–2000 3 episodes, 2001 and 2003 |
| 1999 | Sofa Melt | Host | Television chat show |
| 2000 | I Saw You | Grace Bingley | Television pilot |
| 2000 | Alex | Feature film | |
| 2001 | Green-Eyed Monster | Deanna | Television film |
| 2002 | I Saw You | Grace Bingley | Television series |
| 2002 | Donna Massey | Television film | |
| 2002 | Dead Gorgeous | Rose Bell | Television film |
| 2003 | Meg and Mog Meg and Mog Meg and Mog are the heroes of a series of children’s books written by Helen Nicoll and illustrated by Jan Pienkowski. First published in the 1970s, the books are about Meg, a witch whose spells always seem to go wrong, her striped cat Mog, and their friend Owl.... |
Meg (voice) | Television series |
| 2003 | Bedtime Bedtime (TV series) Bedtime was a British comedy-drama written and directed by Andy Hamilton and broadcast by the BBC. It ran for three series for a total of fifteen episodes between August 2001 and December 2003. The first two series had six episodes each and the third series had three episodes... |
Jill | 1 series of television series |
| 2004 | Fungus the Bogeyman | Jane White | Television film |
| 2005 | Hustle Hustle (TV series) Hustle is a British television drama series made by Kudos Film and Television for BBC One in the United Kingdom. Created by Tony Jordan and first broadcast in 2004, the series follows a group of con artists who specialise in "long cons" – extended deceptions which require greater commitment, but... |
Sam Phillips | 1 episode of television series:
|
| 2006 | Bon Voyage Bon Voyage (TV drama) Bon Voyage was a 2006 TV drama written by Oliver Brown and directed by John Fawcett. It starred Fay Ripley, Ben Miles, Daniel Ryan and Rachael Blake.... |
Linda Holder | 2-part television film |
| 2009–2010 | Reggie Perrin | Nicola Perrin | 2 series of television series |
| 2009 | My Brilliant Britain | Presenter | 1 episode of television series:
|
| 2009 | Monday Monday Monday Monday (TV series) Monday Monday is an ITV comedy drama. It stars Fay Ripley, Jenny Agutter, Neil Stuke, Holly Aird, Morven Christie, Tom Ellis and Miranda Hart.It is set in the head office of a supermarket that has fallen on hard times and had to re-locate its staff from London to Leeds... |
Christine Frances | 1 series of television series |
| 2009 | New Tricks | Anna Greening | 1 episode of television series:
|
| 2011 | Moving On Moving On (TV series) Moving On is a British television series consisting of standalone contemporary dramas first shown on daytime BBC One. Although originally broadcast in an early-afternoon slot, less than a month after the initial airing the first series was repeated to an evening audience... |
Ann Murphy | 1 episode of television series:
|