About Harriet Walter
Dame Harriet Mary Walter (born 1950) is an English actor of stage and screen. She is known for her role as Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK from 2009 to 2014, and in the Hollywood blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), among other film and television roles. Walter began her career performing on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in productions of Twelfth Night (1987–88) and Three Sisters (1988), for which she received the Olivier Award for Best Actress. She received Olivier Award nominations for Life x 3 (2001), and Mary Stuart (2006). Her other notable work for the RSC includes leading roles in Macbeth (1999) and Antony and Cleopatra (2006). She made her Broadway debut in the 1983 revival of the William Shakespeare play All's Well That Ends Well (1983), returning to Broadway in Mary Stuart. She reprised her roles of Brutus in Julius Caesar (2012) and the title role in Henry IV (2014), as well as playing Prospero in The Tempest, as part of an all-female Shakespeare trilogy in 2016. Walter has acted in the films Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Governess (1998), Atonement (2007), The Young Victoria (2009), A Royal Affair (2012), Denial (2016), The Sense of an Ending (2017), Rocketman (2019), and The Last Duel (2021). On television she starred as Harriet Vane in the 1987 BBC Wimsey dramatisations and also appeared in Downton Abbey (2013–15), London Spy (2015), The Crown (2016), Patrick Melrose (2018), Killing Eve (2020), and Silo (2023–present). She has received an Olivier Award and nominations for a Tony Award, five Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She also earned BAFTA TV Awards nominations for her roles in Succession (2018–2023) and Ted Lasso (2020–2023). In 2011, Walter was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama. At the age of 20, Walter became a feminist and went "into political theatre; to try and put as much feminism into the interpretation of parts I was playing".
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.