At 70, Lesley Manville is enjoying a prolific professional chapter. While the summer heat and persistent hay fever—which she jokingly describes by noting, “I’m so white, all I do is burn”—might weary others, she remains unfazed. Following six months of intense work on Broadway productions of Oedipus and Les Liaisons, she is finally taking a rare, well-deserved rest at her London home, tending to her garden.
Her residence contains a specific trophy shelf featuring her Tony award, which sits “next to its friend, Larry Olivier,” an Olivier she earned for the same role. While she dismisses the idea of pursuing jobs solely for the sake of accolades, she maintains a healthy, competitive spirit. “You don’t go into a job thinking about awards,” she explains, laughing. “Listen, you don’t say to an Olympian, ‘Oh, is it OK that you didn’t win?’ Yes, you like to win!”
The past 15 years have transformed Manville from a widely respected actor into a celebrated star. Since 2011, her accolades have mounted significantly, including a Tony, two Oliviers, an Oscar nomination for her work in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, along with multiple Emmy, Golden Globe, and Bafta nominations. Reflecting on this late-career surge, she admits, “I’m so glad I was never flavour of the month, because it’s so hard to maintain. Winning the Olivier for Ibsen’s Ghosts in 2014 took me somewhere else, theatre-wise.”
This week, she returns to television in the BBC One series Marble Hall Murders. In this latest installment from Anthony Horowitz, she reprises her role as publisher-turned-sleuth Susan Ryeland. The story follows Ryeland as she reluctantly leaves her life in London to deal with a young writer’s request to conclude a mystery saga. Manville finds the character particularly relatable, noting her penchant for sharp fashion and her tendency to defy age-related stereotypes. “I love the fact that she wears these fabulous clothes, drives an open-top red sports car—I used to drive an MG in my 20s, although it broke down all the time—and doesn’t put up with any shit.”
Growing up on a council estate in Hove, East Sussex, as one of three daughters born to lifelong Labour supporters, Manville’s core values were established early. “Those principles stay with you,” she says, recalling her early days working at the Royal Court alongside politically minded playwrights like Andrea Dunbar and Caryl Churchill. Though she initially possessed a classical singing voice and considered opera, she eventually opted for the more dynamic field of musical theatre, attending the Italia Conti stage school on a council grant.
From the age of 16 until 22, Manville took any role offered to her, from pantomime to television plays. Her breakthrough in television acting came in 1975 with the ITV soap Emmerdale Farm. Reflecting on her early days in the industry, she recalls a rather unglamorous milestone: “My first screen kiss was in a cowshed! My character was younger and adored an older man. It was more affectionate than passionate. I’ve been kissed in more glamorous locations since.”
Her professional trajectory was permanently altered by her collaboration with director Mike Leigh, which began in 1979. This partnership resulted in eight films, including the poignant portrayals of Mary in Another Year and Penny in All or Nothing. She balances these demanding roles with a high level of physical stamina, noting that she still possesses the energy of the professional dancers she recently worked with. She suggests that society needs to move past the idea that women over 50 lack vitality or sexuality. “Thank God, just because we’re over 50, we don’t have to have walking sticks—or not be thought of as sexual any more. We are!”
Balancing motherhood and a high-profile career proved challenging, particularly after her first husband, Gary Oldman, left shortly after their son Alfie was born in 1989. During that period, she refined her ability to manage her time, juggling parenting duties with script memorization and stage performances. Today, Alfie works as a cameraman in the industry, a path he carved out himself after receiving early guidance from friends like the late Alan Rickman, who told him, “I’ll get you through the door, but the rest is up to you.”
Even at 70, Manville shows no signs of slowing down, recently completing a rigorous schedule that saw her filming the drama Harlots by day and appearing in Long Day’s Journey into Night on the West End by night. Whether through her sophisticated screen characters or her dedication to the craft, she remains firmly focused on the work at hand. The report also notes that albeit not in the art form she would go on to conquer. “I had a really good, classically trained voice when I was young,” she says. “I could have been an opera singer, bu, manville was a gifted performer from a young age. The report also notes that i should have guessed from her enviably upright deportment. “I’ve spent every night of the last three months dancing with professionals in Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” she says. “It felt like an extreme sport and it’s been. The report also notes that her cinematic collaborators have included not only PTA but Luca Guadagnino, Alfonso Cuarón and Joel Coen. The report also notes that this relatively late blooming has come as a relief. The report also notes that there has been a shift, but you’re right. The report also notes that not least The Crown, which obviously wasn’t all about Princess Margaret but boy did Peter Morgan write me two astonishing episodes, a whole sequence of high-profile television.
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