Alexandra Roach

Biography

Alexandra Roach is a Welsh actress for film and television, best known in Britain for her small-screen work and for playing a young Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady (2011). Her career, which began on stage and in television series, has taken her from period drama to comedy and thriller, a path typical of contemporary British acting.

Born in Ammanford, in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire, she is a fluent Welsh speaker. As a teenager she appeared in the long-running soap Pobol y Cwm, winning a juvenile acting award for her work there. After leaving the show in 2005 she spent time with the National Youth Theatre of Wales before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, graduating in 2010.

Her first notable stage role came in The Door Never Closes at the Almeida Theatre in May 2010. On television, roles followed in Being Human, where she played Sasha, in Candy Cabs, and in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, in which she played the child killer Constance Kent. In 2011 she was named to Screen International's Stars of Tomorrow list.

Her most visible film role came with The Iron Lady, directed by Phyllida Lloyd, and she soon joined the film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel Private Peaceful. In 2013 she led the drama Utopia, and in 2015 she starred in the police comedy No Offence as DS Joy Freers. She has said that her Welsh accent once counted against her in an audition, a setback that has since become part of her professional identity.

Her appearances in British comedies such as Vicious and Walter, and her hosting of the 2017 BAFTA Cymru Awards ceremony, show a career that also reaches into Welsh broadcasting. She remains active in British series and productions, and her career reflects the growing presence of Welsh performers in British drama.

Key films

• The Iron Lady (2011): plays a young Margaret Thatcher, the role that brought her wider recognition in film.
• Private Peaceful (2012): film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's novel, in which she plays Molly.
• Anna Karenina (2012): a period title within her early film work.