Lindsay Vere Duncan (born 7 November 1950) is a Scottish actress. She is the recipient of three BAFTA nominations and one Scottish BAFTA nomination, as well as two Olivier Awards and a Tony Award for her work on stage.
She has starred in several plays by Harold Pinter. Duncan's film credits include Prick Up Your Ears (1987), The Reflecting Skin (1990), City Hall (1996), An Ideal Husband, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Mansfield Park (all 1999), Under the Tuscan Sun, AfterLife (both 2003), Starter for 10 (2006), Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), About Time (2013), Birdman (2014), and Blackbird (2019).
Outside of stage and film, Duncan appeared as Barbara Douglas in Alan Bleasdale's critically acclaimed G.B.H. (1991), Servilia of the Junii on the HBO historical drama series Rome (2005–2007), Adelaide Brooke in the Doctor Who special "The Waters of Mars" (2009), Anjelica Hayden-Hoyle in the BBC Two miniseries The Honourable Woman (2014), and Lady Smallwood on BBC One's Sherlock (2014–2017). She also portrayed Elizabeth Longford and Margaret Thatcher in the television films Longford (2006) and Margaret (2009), respectively.
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Early life and education
Duncan was born into a working-class family in Scotland; one parent was from Edinburgh and the other from Glasgow. Her father had served in the British army for 21 years before becoming a civil servant. Her parents moved to Leeds, then Birmingham, when she was still a child. She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham through a scholarship.
Despite her origins, she speaks with a received pronunciation accent. Roles in which she uses her Scottish accent are AfterLife (2003) and the BBC crime drama Mint.
Duncan's father died in a car accident when she was 15. Her mother was affected by Alzheimer's disease and died in 1994; she inspired Sharman Macdonald to write the play The Winter Guest (1995), directed by Alan Rickman, which he later adapted as a film.
Career
Duncan's first contact with theatre was through school productions. She became friends with future playwright Kevin Elyot, who attended the neighbouring King Edward's School for boys, and followed him to Bristol, where he read Drama at university. She did a number of odd jobs while staging her own production of Joe Orton's Funeral Games.
Duncan joined London's Central School of Speech and Drama at the age of 21. After her training, she started out in summer weekly rep in Southwold to gain her Equity card. She appeared in two small roles in Molière's Don Juan at the Hampstead Theatre in 1976, and joined the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester when it opened. She performed in the first productions at the Royal Exchange and appeared in eight plays in Manchester in the next two years. In 1978 she returned to London in Plenty by David Hare at the National. She appeared on the television in small roles in a special episode of Up Pompeii!, in The New Avengers, and a commercial for Head & Shoulders shampoo.
She made her breakthrough on Top Girls by Caryl Churchill, staged at the Royal Court in London and later transferred to the Public Theater in New York, Her performance as Lady Nijo, a 13th-century Japanese concubine, won her an Obie, her first award.
The following year, she took her first major role on film in Richard Eyre's Loose Connections with Stephen Rea. At the same time her television work included a filmed version of Frederick Lonsdale's On Approval (1982), Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983) and Dead Head (1985).
In 1985, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the production of Troilus and Cressida, in which she played Helen of Troy. In September she created the role of the Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the play by Christopher Hampton after the French novel by Choderlos de Laclos, which opened at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. On 8 January 1986, the production transferred to the 200-seat theatre The Pit in London's Barbican Centre, with its original cast. In October of that year, the production moved to the Ambassadors in the West End. In April 1987, the cast, including Duncan, took the play to Broadway. For her performance, she was nominated for a Tony and won the Olivier Award for Best Actress and a Theatre World Award. She was replaced by Glenn Close for Dangerous Liaisons — Stephen Frears's film of the play; similarly John Malkovich was selected for the role of Valmont instead of Duncan's co-star Alan Rickman.
Personal life
Duncan is married to fellow Scottish actor Hilton McRae, whom she met in 1985 at the Royal Shakespeare Company. They live in north London. They have one son, Cal McRae, born September 1991.
Duncan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
