Imelda Staunton, the daughter of the hairdresser who became queen of England

“My parents were Irish immigrants. Dad was a worker and mom was a hairdresser. I grew up in Archway, north London, and we lived above the hairdressers. My mother had me when she was 21 and, shortly after, she was already running a large hair salon, which she later owned. I was not a spoiled child, but I did not lack anything,” wrote actress Imelda Staunton in a piece for Guardian in 2015. The hairdresser's daughter, who today turns 68 amid cheers for her recent incarnation of Elizabeth II in the last season of the historical drama The Crownis, above all, a background actress, with a solid career in the world of acting that has led her to become one of the most fearsome villains of Harry Potter, Dolores Umbridge, but also to collect one of the most coveted awards in the industry in England, a BAFTA for best actress, for her role in Vera Drake's secret.

Imelda Mary Philomena Bernadette Staunton told in another interview that her mother dreamed of being a cruise ship hairdresser “so she could see the whole world,” but, being raised Catholic, “she had to get married” and do what all Irish immigrants did at that time: work hard. That is why Birdie, Staunton's mother, decided to send her daughter to a private Catholic school, to give her the education that she could not afford. It was there that the young Staunton discovered acting: “It was my drama teacher at school who told me that she should audition for drama school. She convinced my mother that she had to be an actress. My parents came from a generation where if someone in authority told them that this was what their daughter was going to do, they accepted it. They weren’t worried about me going into acting because they didn’t know anything about it,” she confessed. At the age of 18, she was admitted to the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she studied: “I discovered a new world through theater. That was my education. We didn't have books at home,” said the actress in Guardian.

Staunton is a discreet actress – both professionally and personally – who has managed to make a career thanks to her work ethic, inherited from her mother, as well as the strong values ​​of her childhood: “I have turned to my mother to play many of my roles that embodied a strong woman. “Her work ethic was her greatest legacy,” she stated. Her career began in the late seventies, and in the theater – which she has never abandoned -, where she got good reviews thanks to her performances in works such as The Beggar's Opera either Guys and Dolls. It was precisely in this play that she met her husband, also an actor Jim Carter, another immensely popular face on British and international television thanks to his portrayal of Mr. Carson, the butler of Downton Abbey. Staunton and Carter married in 1983, making them one of the oldest in the industry. He also has a daughter, Bessie Carter, born in 1993, who has followed in her parents' footsteps and is currently participating in the popular series The Bridgertons.

Later, Staunton began to participate in British television series and films, which made him a popular face, especially as a secondary gold, in the United Kingdom. Her breakthrough and international fame came, however, with two titles in the 2000s. In 2004, she took the lead role in the film Vera Drake's secret, a dramatic film where the actress played a woman of humble origins who performed clandestine abortions in the 1950s. For this character, Staunton was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe, although she ultimately only took home a BAFTA award. “My mother died in 2004, and my father died six days later,” the actress herself wrote: “Mom had coronary heart disease, and she went to the hospital to have a bypass, but she never survived the operation. A week after her death, I received an Oscar nomination for Vera Drake. The fact that my mother never knew and not being able to have that experience with her was completely devastating.”

In 2007, the actress played Professor Dolores Umbridge in the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and, in 2010, he resumed his character in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Some critics highlighted this performance as one of the most important of her career. Of course she was the most popular. At least, until Netflix cast her as the last queen of England in The Crown, a role previously played by Claire Foy and Oscar winner Olivia Colman. “It was a challenge,” Staunton said of her portrayal of Elizabeth II in the fifth and sixth seasons, the only ones that premiered after the death of the Queen of England and whose filming was postponed because of it. “We were fictionalizing real events that were very close to the audience,” he told Sky News, since he felt that, as the series came to an end, the public stopped seeing it as a historical drama as it was already very close to their memories.

Despite his enormous success in film and television, Staunton's great love continues to be the theater, from whose stages he has never left. Just to take well-deserved breaks. He won his first Olivier Award, the most prestigious award in British theatre, in 1985 for his performances in A
Chorus of Disapproval and Goodbye, Miss Ruth. In 1991 she received the second. She has been on stage in works such as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? either Follies. “In my work, I consider myself a very lucky person, since I play all these different people and I get to live many lives,” the actress said in an interview with The Scotsman, “but living mine is also important. And it doesn't take much to make me happy: a good walk with my dog, a nice vacation with my husband… I already do an extraordinary job, that's why I like to do normal things.”