Rebecca Ferguson

• 1. Normal People

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  Rebecca Ferguson, the Swedish actress born Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström, once sat in a modeling portfolio labeled "normal people". Her agency chose that heading because she was neither tall nor slim enough for its usual modeling work. Her mother had decided that she should be a model. Ferguson disliked being photographed and turned down jobs.

  A casting agency searching for a Swedish soap opera later came across that same portfolio. It led directly to her first acting job. The girl filed under ordinary went on to lead major films and television series for international audiences.

  How does that happen? What shaped a performer who grew up speaking two languages and was unsure she even wanted to act? And what changes when an actress trained in dance and soap opera lands in some of the best-known franchises in cinema?

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• 2. A Bilingual Stockholm Childhood

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  Ferguson was born in Stockholm on the 19th of October 1983 and grew up in the city's Vasastan district. Her mother, Rosemary Ferguson, is English and moved to Sweden at the age of 25. Her father, Olov Sundström, is a Swedish businessman.

  Rosemary Ferguson also has a small place in pop history. She helped ABBA translate the lyrics of their 1974 album Waterloo into English. She appears as well on the sleeve of the band's 1975 self-titled album.

  Her parents never married, and they separated when their daughter was 3 years old. Ferguson later took her mother's surname as her stage name. Her maternal grandmother is Northern Irish, and her maternal grandfather is Scottish.

  An English-medium school in Sweden meant she was raised bilingual, speaking both Swedish and English. She also studied at the Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm. She graduated from it in 1999.

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• 3. Soap Operas and Odd Jobs

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  Nya tider, a Swedish soap opera that ran from 1999 to 2000, gave Ferguson her first television role. She played Anna Gripenhielm, an upper-class girl, across 54 episodes. She was only 15 when she began.

  Her doubts about acting shaped her early work history. Unsure whether she wanted this life, she took casual jobs on the side. She worked at a nursery, as a nanny at a daycare centre, in retail stores, at a Korean restaurant and as a hotel cleaner.

  In 2002 she played Chrissy Eriksson in Ocean Ave., a Swedish-American soap. Two years later, in 2004, she made her feature film debut in Drowning Ghost, a slasher film directed by Mikael Håfström.

  A guest role followed in the crime series Wallander in 2008. She played Louise Fredman in the episode titled "Sidetracked".

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• 4. Tango and a Town Market

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  Dance had been part of Ferguson's life from a very early age. Her training covered ballet, tap-dancing, jazz, street funk and tango. Argentine tango became more than a pastime, because she taught it at a dance company in Lund, Sweden, for a few years.

  During those years she kept working on several short art film projects. Then came 2011 and a chance encounter at the Simrishamn town market. The Swedish director Richard Hobert spotted her there, and the meeting led to her starring in his film.

  That performance earned her a nomination for the Rising Star award at the Stockholm International Film Festival. The nominated film was A One-way Trip to Antibes. In 2013 she co-starred in the film alongside Gustaf Skarsgård.

  A British broadcaster was already preparing a far larger role for her.

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• 5. From Queen to Spy

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  In August 2012 came the announcement that Ferguson would play Elizabeth Woodville in The White Queen, a ten-part BBC historical drama. The series drew on Philippa Gregory's Cousins' War novels, which follow the women of the Wars of the Roses. Critics praised her performance, and it brought a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film.

  Her first Hollywood part arrived in 2014, when she played Ergenia opposite Dwayne Johnson in Hercules.

  Tom Cruise had been watching. After seeing her in The White Queen, he handpicked Ferguson to star opposite him in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation. He had also noticed a resemblance between her and Ingrid Bergman.

  In that 2015 film she played the MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, the female lead of the fifth movie in the series, and won critical acclaim. She was in the running for Breakthrough Performer at the Hamptons International Film Festival. She was also up for Best Actress in an Action Movie at the Critics' Choice Awards and Best Female Newcomer at the Empire Awards.

  Mission: Impossible - Fallout followed in 2018 and became her biggest commercial success, grossing over $790 million worldwide. She returned a third time for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One in 2023.

  She did not wait for that third film to take other parts, and her next year brought three major roles at once.

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• 6. A Run of Varied Roles

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  Shamim Sarif's Cold War espionage thriller Despite the Falling Snow gave Ferguson the dual roles of Katya and Lauren. Her co-stars were Sam Reid and Charles Dance. Her performance won her the Best Actress award at the 2016 Prague Independent Film Festival.

  Stephen Frears directed Florence Foster Jenkins, in which she appeared with Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant. Tate Taylor's thriller The Girl on the Train, an adaptation of a book, starred Emily Blunt and also featured Ferguson.

  Daniel Espinosa's sci-fi horror film Life made her the female lead in 2017, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds. That year she also co-starred in Tomas Alfredson's crime thriller The Snowman, with Michael Fassbender and Charlotte Gainsbourg. She played the Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind in the musical The Greatest Showman, with Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams.

  The year 2019 brought several major film roles. She co-starred in Doctor Sleep, the adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name. In Joe Cornish's adventure film The Kid Who Would Be King she played the villain Morgana. In F. Gary Gray's science fiction comedy Men in Black: International she played Riza Stavros.

  Lisa Joy's science fiction thriller Reminiscence followed in 2021 and marked the start of a stretch dominated by science fiction.

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• 7. Dunes and Silos

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  Denis Villeneuve cast Ferguson as Lady Jessica in his adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune. She played the role in Dune in 2021 and again in Dune: Part Two in 2024. Dune: Part Three is listed for 2026. The role won her a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.

  In 2022 the Göteborg Film Festival gave her its Nordic Honorary Dragon Award.

  Apple TV+ brought her to television in a leading part. In 2023 she starred in the science fiction series Silo as Juliette Nichols, and she also served as an executive producer. The run earned her Saturn Award and Satellite Award nominations.

  That same year she narrated Wild Scandinavia, a three-part wildlife series.

  A House of Dynamite, in which she plays Capt. Olivia "Liv" Walker, is listed for 2025. Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man is listed for 2026.

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• 8. Between Two Countries

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  In 2007 Ferguson had her first child, a son, with her then-boyfriend Ludwig Hallberg, a psychosynthesis therapist. After her soap opera success and their son's birth, the couple moved to Simrishamn on the Swedish southeast coast. In 2012 they taught tango together in Österlen. They separated in April 2015.

  Since 2016 she has been in a relationship with the businessman Rory St. Clair Gainer. Their daughter was born in May 2018, and they married in December 2018. Their house in Richmond, southwest London, was chosen for its closeness to Pinewood and Shepperton studios.

  Ferguson divides her time between London and a fishing village in Sweden. Her son lives in Sweden with his father. She keeps a close relationship with both of them.

  The costume of Rose the Hat in Doctor Sleep reflects one of Ferguson's own habits. She prefers going barefoot, and that preference influenced her creative choices for the character's look.

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