Olivia Williams, born in the Welsh town of Solihull on July 26th, 1968, is an English actress best known for her roles in films such as Phantom of the Opera, Sense and Sensibility, An Education,Miss Austen Regrets, The Secret Garden and The Sixth Sense. Williams has also appeared in such Television shows as Mystery!, The Night of, Ripper Street and The Crown.
Williams began her career at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1993. She made her film debut in The Postman (1997) and later appeared in The Fifth Province, Rushmore and The Sixth Sense before her breakthrough role in The Phantom of the Opera (2004). In 2005 she was nominated for a Golden Globe and won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in Stephen Poliakoff’s television drama Joe Gould’s Secret (2005).
Williams is a classically trained actress, earning a BA in English from the University of Manchester and an MA in Theatre from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She is a graduate of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Her film and television credits include The Others (2001), The Man from Elysian Fields (2002), The Bodyguard (2003), An Education (2009), The Ghost Writer (2010), The Avengers (2012), Cemetery Junction (2010), Robot Overlords (2015) and Black Mirror (2016).
Williams is also an accomplished stage actor. She has performed in various productions of plays by Shakespeare, Stoppard, Ibsen and Pinter and in 2015 she starred in the Broadway production of King Lear with Glenda Jackson.
In addition to her acting career, Olivia is an ambassador for the charity Women for Refugee Women and on their behalf she has publicly expressed her passionate conviction that allowing legal routes to protection would create a more sustainable and humane approach to supporting people in their time of crisis.
Williams is married to actor Rhashan Stone, with whom she shares two children. They live in London.
Williams is a respected figure in British film and television and her work has earned her numerous industry awards, including a Golden Globe, three BAFTA’s and an OBE. She continues to challenge herself in her professional life and is currently producing and starring in a new six-part series for Sky One entitled ‘Little Birds’, adapted from the renowned Anaïs Nin novel, which will be broadcast in 2019. Her talent for bringing complex characters to life has seen her become one of the finest actors of her generation and she will no doubt continue to be a major force in the world of film and television for many years to come.
