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.
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Early life and education
Harriet Walter was born in London, England in 1950.. Her father was Roderick Walter and her mother Xandra Carandini Lee. Xandra was the elder sister of British actor Sir Christopher Lee making Harriet his niece. This part of the family has Italian origins. On her father's side, Harriet is a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The Times.
In 2026, Walter participated in an episode of the BBC family history television series Who Do You Think You Are?, focusing on her maternal family line, as the Walter family is already documented. During the episode, she learned of her mother's work during World War II for the Naval Intelligence Division, managing the intelligence team responsible for naval intelligence ahead of the D-Day Normandy landings. Walter also explored her direct descent from the English-born Australian opera singer Marie Carandini and an Italian marquis.
Walter was educated at Cranborne Chase School. After turning down a university education, she was rejected by five drama schools before being admitted to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Following her training, she gained early experience with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, Paines Plough touring, and the Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster.
Career
Walter appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) productions Nicholas Nickleby (1980), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1981), All's Well That Ends Well (1981), The Castle (1985), A Question of Geography (1988), Twelfth Night (1988), Three Sisters (1988), The Duchess of Malfi (1989), Macbeth (1999), Much Ado about Nothing (2002), and Death of a Salesman (2015).
In 1987, Walter was made an associate artist of the RSC. Additional theatre work includes Three Birds Alighting on a Field (1991, 1993), Arcadia (1993), Hedda Gabler (1996), Ivanov (1997), and Mary Stuart (2005).
Walter made her Broadway debut in 1983, when the RSC production of All's Well That Ends Well transferred there. In 1993, she starred as Biddy in the off-Broadway production of Three Birds Alighting on a Field, for which she received a Drama Desk Award nomination. She returned to the Broadway stage in 2009, when she reprised her role in Mary Stuart. In 2014, Walter starred as Brutus in an all-female off-Broadway production of Julius Caesar and received her second nomination for Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play.
Walter's films include Sense and Sensibility (1995), Bedrooms and Hallways (1998), The Governess (1998), Onegin (1999), Villa des Roses (2002), and Bright Young Things (2003). In 1987, she portrayed Harriet Vane in three instalments of the BBC's A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery, and played Detective Inspector Natalie Chandler from 2009 to 2012 in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK. Other television roles include Waking the Dead (2001), Little Dorrit (2008), A Short Stay in Switzerland (2009), and Lady Shackleton in the series Downton Abbey (2013–15).
Walter played Brutus in Julius Caesar in 2012, and the title role in Henry IV in 2014, in all-female productions at the Donmar Warehouse. Both productions transferred to Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse in New York. She was set to reprise both roles, as well as playing Prospero in an all-female production of The Tempest, as part of director Phyllida Lloyd's Shakespeare trilogy at the Donmar's temporary, in-the-round, 420-seat theatre next to King's Cross station in 2016.
In 2016, Walter played Clementine Churchill on the Netflix series The Crown, appeared in two episodes in 2017 in Call the Midwife, and had a recurring role on the HBO series Succession (2018–23). She portrayed the Tudor matriarch Margaret Beaufort in the series The Spanish Princess. In 2020, Walter joined the series Killing Eve.
Personal life
Walter was in a relationship with actor Peter Blythe from 1996 until his death in 2004. She married actor Guy Paul in 2011.
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". She was conflicted on her damehood and nearly turned it down, but eventually decided to accept because "there are many fewer women [than men] who can sustain a career to the point where they can be named a Dame, and that's not through lack of talent. It was a slightly political gesture".
She supported the UK remaining in the European Union in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum.
Walter, who speaks Russian, gave a reading at the 2022 Poets for Ukraine event alongside Juliet Stevenson, Meera Syal, and others. Shortly after the beginning of the 2023 Gaza war, Walter was one of over 2,000 to sign an Artists for Palestine letter calling for a ceasefire and accusing western governments of "not only tolerating war crimes but aiding and abetting them". She condemned the decision to rescind Caryl Churchill's 2022 European Drama Lifetime Achievement Award over Churchill's support of Palestine and alleged anti-semitism.
Walter is a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres; Prisoners Abroad, a charity that supports Britons imprisoned overseas and their families; and Clean Break, a charity and theatre company dedicated to sharing the stories of imprisoned women and transforming the lives of female offenders through theatre education.
Acting credits
Theatre
1979, Royal Shakespeare Company, A Midsummer Night's Dream
1981/82, Royal Shakespeare Company, Helena in All's Well That Ends Well
1981/82, Royal Shakespeare Company, Winnifrede in The Witch of Edmonton
1983, Martin Beck Theatre (Broadway transfer), Helena in All's Well That Ends Well
1985, Royal Shakespeare Company, Skinner in The Castle
1987/88, Royal Shakespeare Company, Imogen in Cymbeline
1987/88, Royal Shakespeare Company, Viola in Twelfth Night
1987/88, Royal Shakespeare Company, Dacha in A Question of Geography
1988, Royal Shakespeare Company, Masha in Chekhov's Three Sisters
1989/90, Royal Shakespeare Company, Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi
1991, Royal Court Theatre (and off-Broadway transfer 1993), Biddy in Timberlake Wertenbaker's Three Birds Alighting on a Field
1993, Royal National Theatre, Lady Croom in the premiere run of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
1993, Queen Elizabeth Hall, title role in Benda's Medea, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment conducted by Iván Fischer
1999, Royal Shakespeare Company, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth
Audio
Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation
The Vortex by Noël Coward as Florence Lancaster, BBC Radio 3, 2 January 2000
Scenes of Seduction as Catherine, radio play written by Timberlake Wertenbaker and directed by Ned Chaillet, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 7 March 2005
Desmond Olivier Dingle as herself, broadcast on BBC7 on 28 February 2007, episode 2 of 6, duration 30 minutes
The Arts and How they was done as herself, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 4 April and 9 May 2007, episodes 1 and 6 out of 6, duration 30 minutes
I, Claudius as Livia, wife of Augustus, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 December 2010
Desert Island Discs as herself on BBC Radio 4, guested on 26 June 2011
Time and the Conways as Mrs. Conway in BBC Radio 3's adaptation of J.B. Priestley's play, broadcast on 14 September 2014
The Mysterious Affair at Styles as Emily Inglethorp, a 2024 Audible original
Honours
She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2000 New Year Honours and promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to drama.
In 2001 she and Kenneth Branagh were both given honorary doctorates and honorary fellowships at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford.