Vanessa Kirby

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Vanessa Nuala Kirby was turned down by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, known as LAMDA, when she applied to train as an actress. Years later, the same woman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Even her birth year is uncertain. She was born on the 18th of April, in either 1987 or 1988, and the record gives both. So what happened between that rejection and that nomination? Where did an English graduate from Wimbledon learn her craft, if not at a drama school? Why do critics keep reaching for the language of the theatre when they praise her work on screen? And how does one actress move between Shakespeare, Chekhov, a royal drama, a spy franchise and a film about the loss of a baby?

  21

• 2. Wimbledon And Exeter

  ›

  In Wimbledon, London, Kirby grew up in a household that mixed writing and medicine. Her mother, Jane Cooper Kirby, is a former writer for Country Living magazine. Her father, Roger Kirby, is a retired surgeon and President of the Royal Society of Medicine. She has two siblings. Her brother Joe is a school teacher, and her sister Juliet is a theatrical agent.

  Kirby attended Lady Eleanor Holles School. Afterwards she took a gap year to travel, and she worked for a time in an AIDS hospice in South Africa. Then she enrolled at the University of Exeter to study English. The degree she finished was in English, a subject that would serve her well once Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov were waiting in her future.

  453

• 3. The Stage Years

  ›

  In 2010, the director David Thacker gave Kirby three starring roles at the Octagon Theatre Bolton. She had recently signed with a talent agency and met him. The plays were All My Sons, Ghosts, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Her work in All My Sons earned her the BIZA Rising Star Award at the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, a prize worth £5,000. She also played Rosalind in As You Like It at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. Alfred Hickling of The Guardian called her a "significant new talent". Of her Helena, he wrote: "Kirby gives a performance of statuesque distinction as Helena".

  The National Theatre came next, in 2011, with Women Beware Women. Marianne Elliott directed, and the cast included Harriet Walter and Harry Melling. That same year Kirby appeared at the Royal Court Theatre in The Acid Test, a play by Anya Reiss directed by Simon Godwin. Paul Taylor of The Independent described her as "a star if ever I saw one".

  In September 2012, she played Masha in Benedict Andrews's production of Three Sisters at the Young Vic. Matt Trueman of Time Out wrote: "In a super cast given licence to shine, Kirby stands out as Masha". In 2013 she returned to the National Theatre as Isabella of France, the Queen of England, in Edward II, opposite John Heffernan. Michael Billington of The Guardian praised a "strong performance".

  Summer 2014 brought Andrews and the Young Vic back into her life. She played Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, with Gillian Anderson as Blanche Dubois and Ben Foster as Stanley. That year, she won the Best Supporting Actress category at the WhatsOnStage Awards. She would play Stella again at St. Ann's Warehouse in 2016.

  In 2016, she played Elena in Robert Icke's Uncle Vanya at the Almeida Theatre. Matt Trueman, writing for Variety, said the performance "confirms her as the outstanding stage actress of her generation, capable of the most unexpected choices". In 2018 she took the title role in Julie, Polly Stenham's adaptation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie, at the Royal National Theatre. It is the latest stage credit in her listed record.

  78101314

• 4. First Screen Roles

  ›

  Kirby's television debut came in 2011, in two BBC series. In The Hour she played Ruth Elms, and in Great Expectations she took the part of Estella. Early in 2012 she filmed the British crime movie The Rise. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and drew favourable reviews.

  The year 2013 was busy. Richard Curtis cast her in a supporting role in his romantic comedy About Time, starring Rachel McAdams. She also appeared in the American film Charlie Countryman, and in one episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot. A role in John Boorman's Queen and Country followed in 2014.

  In 2015, the scale grew. She played the American socialite Sandy Hill Pittman in Everest, and appeared in the space opera Jupiter Ascending, made by The Wachowskis. On television, she shared the screen with Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen in the film The Dresser. She also had a main role, as Lady Jemima Hervey, in the series The Frankenstein Chronicles.

  1112151619

• 5. Princess Margaret

  ›

  In May 2015, Netflix cast Kirby as Princess Margaret in The Crown, a historical drama about the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. She was a main cast member for the first two seasons. The role earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actress in 2017. In 2018 she won the award for her work in the second season. Critics praised the performance, and it carried her to international prominence.

  The year 2016 put her on screen three times. She played Zelda Fitzgerald in Genius, and she led the science fiction film Kill Command. She also featured in the romantic drama Me Before You. Meanwhile, The Crown kept her name in front of audiences. She returned to it in 2022 as a guest in the fifth season, bringing her total to 18 episodes.

  2021626519

• 6. Blockbuster Years

  ›

  Opposite Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible - Fallout in 2018, Kirby played Alanna Mitsopolis, an arms dealer known as the White Widow. In 2019 she joined Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in Fast and Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, playing Hattie Shaw. Kambole Campbell thought that "Vanessa Kirby steals the show with wry wit and casual lethality". That same year she appeared in Mr Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland. The biopic loosely tells the story of Gareth Jones, and it competed for the Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival.

  Not every 2019 plan survived. She was cast in the French thriller Suddenly, known as Soudain Seuls, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. A disagreement between the director Thomas Bidegain and Gyllenhaal led to the film being rewritten and recast. She was also among the favourites to play Black Canary in Birds of Prey, but that role went to Jurnee Smollett.

  In 2023, Ridley Scott's historical drama Napoleon gave her the part of Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife. Joaquin Phoenix played the title role. Kirby had replaced Jodie Comer in the part. She also returned as the White Widow in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, and the 2025 sequel, The Final Reckoning, used only archival footage of her.

  In February 2024, Marvel announced her as Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. The film was released on the 25th of July 2025. Her likeness also appeared in Fortnite Battle Royale that year. She is due to play the character again in Avengers: Doomsday in 2026 and Avengers: Secret Wars in 2027.

  2448505160

• 7. Grief On Screen

  ›

  In Kornél Mundruzcó's Pieces of a Woman, Kirby played Martha, a woman consumed by grief after the loss of a baby. The film premiered at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, where she won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. Peter Debruge of Variety called it "ultimately Kirby's movie", describing her as a "stage marvel" delivering her most impressive screen performance to date. David Fear of Rolling Stone called her performance "transcendent". Nominations followed from the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs and the Screen Actors Guild.

  The same Venice festival, the 77th, also carried The World to Come, directed by Mona Fastvold, in which Katherine Waterston co-starred. The film won the Queer Lion award for best LGBTQ-themed film. Xan Brooks of The Guardian saw in Kirby "a fine, charismatic turn as the free-spirited Tallie". Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent wrote that her performance was "thrillingly, seductively, alive".

  In 2021 Kirby led the drama Italian Studies. Fear returned to her with a different kind of praise, describing a "completely raw, guileless, ego-less performance". The Son, starring Hugh Jackman, premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in 2022. Reviews of the film were mixed, but Clayton Davis of Variety wrote: "Kirby is reinventing the wheel of acting with a masterfully executed physical portrayal".

  2932333438

• 8. Beyond Acting

  ›

  In 2021, Kirby and her sister Juliet founded Aluna Entertainment, a London-based production company with a first look deal at Netflix. Kirby also served as an executive producer on Italian Studies. In March 2024 it was announced that she would play Lynette, the lead role in the Netflix adaptation of Willy Vlautin's novel The Night Always Comes. Filming took place in Portland during the spring of 2024, and she is credited as a producer on the film.

  Audiences could also hear her. From 2021 to 2023 she co-hosted the True Spies podcast with Hayley Atwell, Sophia Di Martino and Daisy Ridley. Her audiobook work stretches from a BBC Radio 3 full-cast dramatisation of Romeo and Juliet in 2015 to The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory in 2019. It also includes The Virginia Woolf Collection in 2021 and Dolly Alderton's Good Material in 2024.

  In private life, Kirby was in a relationship with the English actor Callum Turner from 2015 to 2019. Since 2022 she has been with Paul Rabil, an American former professional lacrosse player who co-founded the Premier Lacrosse League and serves as its President. At CCXP Mexico in May 2025, the couple revealed that they were expecting their first child. On the 7th of September 2025, Kirby announced that the baby had been born.

  4041445358