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It is perhaps fitting that Imelda Staunton ended up playing Queen Elizabeth II in the last two series of The Crown, considering she has been acting royalty for years. Her film career has seen her voice champion egg-layer Bunty in 2000’s Chicken Run, followed by roles in Mike Leigh’s 2004 drama Vera Drake and the 2005 comedy Nanny McPhee. In 2014, she played the formidable Welsh miners’ strike campaigner Hefina in Pride. She also plays Lady Maud Bagshaw in the first two Downton Abbey films, and voices Paddington’s beloved Aunt Lucy in all three Paddington films. For a whole generation, however, she will always be Dolores Umbridge in two of the later Harry Potter films, where she somehow made a pink cardigan almost as frightening as Voldemort.
On TV, she has cropped up in everything from Little Britain and Doctor Who to Psychoville, Brassic and a memorable guest appearance in the fourth series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, where – for reasons known only to F&L – she was introduced as “Snutty”. Whether she’s playing a chicken, a bear or the head of state, there is always something unmistakably Imelda about her performances: warm and calm but with the distinct impression that she won’t stand for any nonsense.
After training at Rada, Staunton spent six years in repertory theatre before making her film debut in Bill Douglas’s 1986 historical epic Comrades. She went on to appear in 1992’s Peter’s Friends, 1993’s Much Ado About Nothing, 1995’s Sense and Sensibility and 1998’s Shakespeare in Love. Then came Leigh’s Vera Drake, in which she plays a warm-hearted cleaner who secretly carries out illegal abortions in 1950s London. Her performance won her a Bafta and the best actress prize at the Venice film festival, as well as earning her an Oscar nomination.
In addition, Staunton has had a garlanded career in musicals, beginning in 1982 with The Beggar’s Opera. Her performances in Follies, Guys and Dolls, The Wizard of Oz, Gypsy, Sweeney Todd and Hello Dolly! have been widely acclaimed. She has received 15 Olivier award nominations, winning five of them. In 2024, she was awarded a DBE.
Her latest film, & Sons, reunites her with her Pride co-star Bill Nighy, who plays a famously difficult novelist who summons his family together to make a startling announcement; Staunton plays his estranged wife.
Now Staunton is here to answer your questions so please post them below by 6pm on Wednesday 5 August, we’ll put the best to Snutty and publish her answers in Film & Music.
