Lydia Leonard is a British actress.

She was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 to an Irish mother, a teacher, and Anglo-French father, a financial accountant; she lived in France until the age of five.

Originally, Leonard wanted to be a barrister

Barrister

A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

, which she considers to be a profession very similar to acting onstage. Her first acting role was in Nativity

Nativity play

A Nativity play or Christmas pageant is a play which recounts the story of the Nativity of Jesus. It is usually performed at Christmas, the feast of the Nativity.-Liturgical:...

 spectacle in school, where she played King Herod. Leonard went from Bedales School

Bedales School

Bedales School is a co-educational independent school situated in Hampshire, in the south east of England. Founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools, today the school is one of the most expensive in the UK, charging £9,985 per term for a...

 to graduate from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, opened by Laurence Olivier in 1946, is an affiliate of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, an organisation securing the highest standards of training in the performing arts, and is an associate school of the Faculty of Creative Arts of the University of the...

 in 2003, and then won a BBC

BBC

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...

 Radio Drama Carleton Hobbs

Carleton Hobbs

Carleton Percy Hobbs was an English actor with many film, radio and television appearances. He portrayed Sherlock Holmes in 80 radio adaptations between 1952 and 1969, and also starred in the radio adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour.Hobbs was born in Farnborough, Hampshire, into a...

 bursary

Bursary

A bursary is strictly an office for a bursar and his or her staff in a school or college.In modern English usage, the term has become synonymous with "bursary award", a monetary award made by an institution to an individual or a group to assist the development of their education.According to The...

.

Her radio credits include playing Lady Mabel in a twelve-part adaptation of Anthony Trollope's series of political novels, and Goodwill in The Pilgrim's Progress

The Pilgrim's Progress

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been...

. On television she had an ongoing role in 50s-set detective series Jericho

Jericho

Jericho ; is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate and has a population of more than 20,000. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest permanently...

starring Robert Lindsay

Robert Lindsay (actor)

Robert Lindsay is an English actor who is best known for his television work, especially his roles of Wolfie Smith in Citizen Smith, Michael Murray in G.B.H., Captain Sir Edward Pellew in Hornblower and Ben Harper in My Family which has been on television screens since 2000.-Early life:Lindsay was...

, and appeared in True True Lie

True True Lie

True True Lie is 2006 thriller film directed by Eric Styles. The film follows Dana, who after 12 years in an asylum, is reunited with her family and childhood friends Nathalie and Paige. Dana slowly begins to realize that the events that led to her stay there may not have been imaginary...

(2006) and The Long Walk to Finchley

The Long Walk to Finchley

Margaret Thatcher - The Long Walk to Finchley, subtitled in the initial credits How Maggie Might Have Done It, is a 2008 BBC Four television drama based on the early political career of the young Margaret Thatcher , from her attempts to gain a seat in Dartford in 1949 via invasion to her first...

(2008), along with a cameo in Rome

Rome (TV series)

Rome is a British-American–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic...

(2006, The Stolen Eagle), and as a nurse in the BBC's Casualty 1909.

Leonard appeared on stage as Polyxena in a Royal Shakespeare Company

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...

 production of Hecuba

Hecuba

Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War, with whom she had 19 children. These children included several major characters of Homer's Iliad such as the warriors Hector and Paris, and the prophetess Cassandra...

starring Vanessa Redgrave

Vanessa Redgrave

Vanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...

 and alongside Francesca Annis

Francesca Annis

Francesca Annis is an English actress, known for her film and television appearances, most recently in the BBC series Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Deceit.-Early life and education:...

 in the 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...

's production of Time and the Conways

Time and the Conways

Time and the Conways is a British play written by J. B. Priestley in 1937 illustrating J. W. Dunne's Theory Of Time through the experience of a moneyed Yorkshire family, the Conways, over a period of nineteen years from 1919 to 1937...

. In 2005 Leonard appeared as Caroline Cushing in the original Donmar Theatre and West End productions of Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon

Frost/Nixon is a 2006 play by British screenwriter and dramatist Peter Morgan. Its subject is the series of televised interviews that former United States President Richard Nixon granted David Frost in 1977 about his administration, including his role in the Watergate scandal.-Performance...

.

In 2008 Leonard played a major role in the BBC re-make of The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps (2008 film)

The 39 Steps is a 2008 British television feature-length adaptation of the John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps produced by the BBC. The adaptation is set on the eve of World War I, and sees mining engineer Richard Hannay caught up in a conspiracy following the death of a British spy in his...

. Part of the Christmas scheduling, its first showing was the most watched program on 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...

 on that day. Leonard starred as Cynthia in Joanna Hogg's

Joanna Hogg

Joanna Hogg is a British film maker and screenwriter. She made her directorial and screenwriting feature film debut in 2007 with Unrelated.-Early TV Work:...

 2010 feature film Archipelago

Archipelago (film)

Archipelago is a 2010 British film written and directed by Joanna Hogg about a family holiday on Tresco, Isles of Scilly.-Plot:A darkly comic and quietly moving portrayal of a family in emotional crisis...

.

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2004	The Heat of the Story		short
	Foyle's War	Marion Greenwood	TV series (1 episode: "The French Drop")
	Midsomer Murders Midsomer Murders Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...	Phoebe Frears	TV series (1 episode: "Ghosts of Christmas Past")
2005	Rome Rome (TV series) Rome is a British-American–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic...	Julia	TV series (1 episode: "The Stolen Eagle")
	Jericho	Angela	TV series (4 episodes)
2006	The Line of Beauty The Line of Beauty The Line of Beauty is a 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel by Alan Hollinghurst.-Plot introduction:Set in Britain in the early to mid-1980s, the story surrounds the post-Oxford life of the young gay protagonist, Nick Guest....	Penny Kent	TV series (3 episodes)
	True True Lie True True Lie True True Lie is 2006 thriller film directed by Eric Styles. The film follows Dana, who after 12 years in an asylum, is reunited with her family and childhood friends Nathalie and Paige. Dana slowly begins to realize that the events that led to her stay there may not have been imaginary...	Dana
2008	Ashes to Ashes Ashes to Ashes (TV series) Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...	Sarah Templeton	TV series (1 episode: "Episode #1.4")
	Casualty 1907 Casualty 1900s Casualty 1900s is a British hospital drama spin-off miniseries, broadcast by the BBC.It plunges the viewer into the Receiving Room - a similar concept to today's Accident and Emergency - of The London Hospital deep in the teeming East End...	Laura Goodley	TV series (3 episodes)
	Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley	Joyce	TV movie
	The 39 Steps The 39 Steps (2008 film) The 39 Steps is a 2008 British television feature-length adaptation of the John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps produced by the BBC. The adaptation is set on the eve of World War I, and sees mining engineer Richard Hannay caught up in a conspiracy following the death of a British spy in his...	Victoria Sinclair	TV movie
2009	Casualty 1909	Laura Goodley	TV series (4 episodes)
2010	Archipelago Archipelago (film) Archipelago is a 2010 British film written and directed by Joanna Hogg about a family holiday on Tresco, Isles of Scilly.-Plot:A darkly comic and quietly moving portrayal of a family in emotional crisis...	Cynthia
2011	Spooks Spooks Spooks is a British television drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 – 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, as the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a...	Martha Ford	TV Series (Series 10 Episode 2)

External links