Anna Louise Friel (born 12 July 1976) is an English actress. She first achieved fame as Beth Jordache in the British soap opera Brookside (1993–1995), later coming to wider prominence through her role as Charlotte "Chuck" Charles on Pushing Daisies (2007–2009), for which she received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. In 2017, she won the International Emmy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the title character in the detective drama series Marcella (2016–2021). Her other accolades include a Drama Desk Award, an honorary degree, and a BAFTA nomination.
Friel made her feature film debut in 1998 with a leading role in The Land Girls. Subsequent credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), Me Without You (2001), Timeline (2003), Goal! (2005), Bathory (2008), Land of the Lost (2009), Limitless (2011), Books of Blood (2020), and Charming the Hearts of Men (2021). Her stage credits include Closer (Broadway, 1999), Breakfast at Tiffany's (West End, 2009), and Uncle Vanya (West End, 2012).
Anna Louise Friel was born on 12 July 1976 in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. Her mother, Julie Bamford Friel (born 1952), is, as of 2020, a special education teacher. Her father, Desmond "Des" Friel (born 1951), was born in Belfast and raised in County Donegal, Ireland. He is a former French teacher and folk guitarist, who, as of 2020, owns a web design company. Her brother Michael is a doctor, who in his youth did television advertising work for Hovis.
Friel attended Crompton House CE Secondary School, an Anglican school; and later Holy Cross College, a Roman Catholic sixth form. She began her training as an actress at Oldham Theatre Workshop.
1991–1999: Television work and film debut
Friel made her professional debut at age 13 in the television miniseries G.B.H., which aired in 1991 and was nominated for several BAFTAs. This led to small parts on the ITV soap operas Coronation Street and Emmerdale (1991; 1992). She was cast the following year as Beth Jordache in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside, a role she played for two years. The character was involved in some of the series' most famous storylines, including the murder and covert burial of her abusive father, and the first ever pre-watershed lesbian kiss in British television history; a moment that went on to be broadcast around the world—including 76 countries where homosexuality is outlawed—when it featured during a montage at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. She later said, "For a very long time I was defined by that kiss. And I didn't want to be. I spent years turning down other lesbian roles because it felt like going back to Beth. [But it] did also make me want to take on parts that showed extreme sides of women". In 1995, Friel won a National Television Award in the category of "Most Popular Actress" for her work on Brookside.
Upon leaving the show (a decision she initially thought to be a "terrible mistake"), Friel was cast in a 1996 episode of Tales from the Crypt and appeared as one of the main characters in Stephen Poliakoff's television film The Tribe (1998), which attracted controversy for its inclusion of a ménage à trois sex scene. She then played leading roles in small-screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and Robert Louis Stevenson's St. Ives (both 1998), and co-starred in several British films, such as wartime period drama The Land Girls (1998), crime drama Rogue Trader (1999), and slapstick comedy Mad Cows (1999). While most were dismissive of Cows' eccentric humour, some critics felt that Friel's work as Australian expatriate Maddy was impressive. Next, she played Hermia in the 1999 film version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, saying later of the experience, "I think that [role] sort of changed things for me, especially in America, because the cast was really great—Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christian Bale—and people started to think, 'if she's working with [those people] she must be doing well'".
During that same period, Friel made her Broadway debut in a production of Patrick Marber's Closer, which ran for 173 performances at the Music Box Theatre in New York (March–August 1999). In his review of the show for Variety, Charles Isherwood wrote:
It's the exquisitely lovely Friel who is the discovery here. Her Alice is both the nihilistic core of the play and its tender center, and the paradoxical mixture of toughness and fragility [she] brings to it are essential to the play's deepest truths. It's a star-making performance.
For her work as exotic dancer Alice, Friel won that year's Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play.
2000–2009: Stage roles, film work, and Pushing Daisies
Friel had leading roles in the comedy-drama films An Everlasting Piece and Sunset Strip (both 2000), with her performance in Piece attracting particular praise. The following year, she starred as the wife of a World War II soldier in the decently reviewed Canadian film The War Bride, for which she earned a Genie Award nomination for Best Actress, and co-headlined the coming-of-age drama Me Without You opposite Michelle Williams. In his appraisal of You for Variety, David Rooney said, "Of the central duo, Friel has the most difficult job, playing an essentially unsympathetic brat … But [she] continually tempers the negatives with a vulnerability and insecurity that redeem her". Between March and May 2001, Friel appeared in an adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu at the Almeida Theatre; her West End stage debut. Describing her portrayal of the titular Victorian sex worker, theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh felt, "The appeal of Miss Friel's [performance] depends upon its restraint, guile and cool", noting that she mixes "child-like glee and naughtiness" with a "calm and callous" demeanour. The play transferred to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. for one month following its run at the Almeida.
Friel's next roles were in the Irish television film Watermelon (2003), where she starred as a headstrong Dublin girl who travels to England for an abortion, and the Richard Donner fantasy adventure film Timeline (2003), where she played the love interest of the main character. She was then cast as Attorney Megan Delaney in The Jury, an American legal drama series that ran on Fox for a single season in 2004. Writing for The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley called the show "clever, innovative" and said of Friel, "hers is the most textured and persuasive character". Friel later admitted to finding the job—her first regular role on U.S. television—a challenge: "Everyone was saying, 'you will never believe how much hard work it is', and I was telling them not to worry because I'm used to it [but] my God were they right [...] You run off the set from one scene and get changed and run back on. It is so fast and so very well organised but it is hard, hard bloody work". Next, she played Geordie nurse Roz in the British-American sports drama Goal! (2005; a part she reprised in its sequel) and appeared as a recovering drug addict in the Toronto-set Niagara Motel (2006). In a mixed review of Motel, The Georgia Straight's Ken Eisner noted that Friel's performance carried "the most weight" in the film, while commending her "perfect local accent". In November 2006, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Bolton for contributions to the performing arts.
In 2007, Friel was cast as Charlotte "Chuck" Charles in Pushing Daisies, an American dramedy series created by Bryan Fuller, which aired on ABC from October that year until June 2009. The show was warmly reviewed during its run, with television critic John Leonard believing it to be "at once satire, mystery, fairy tale, romance, lollipop, whimsy, and kazoo", and singling out Friel as a highlight. Her portrayal of Charles, a resurrected murder victim and passionate beekeeper, won her a nomination for the 2008 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. Daisies was cancelled shortly after its second season finale, with viewership having dropped from 13 million to 4.9 million. Friel was subsequently offered a number of roles on American television, but turned them down to focus on her film career.