Anna Louise Friel (born 12 July 1976) is an English actress. She rose to fame in the UK as Beth Jordache on Channel 4 soap Brookside, and has had a successful career since in UK and US TV and cinema.
Friel was born in Mansfield, Greater Manchester, the daughter of Julie, a special needs teacher, and Des Friel, a former teacher of French and owner of a web design company. Friel's Irish Catholic father, a former folk guitarist, was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and grew up in Donegal, Ireland. Her brother Michael starred in Hovis television adverts.
She attended Crompton House Church of England High School, in High Crompton, Shaw and Crompton. She then attended Holy Cross College in Bury. Friel became interested in acting at an early age and received frequent praise for her work at local talent shows.
At the age of 13, she was hired for her first professional acting job in the Channel 4 drama serial G.B.H., as the daughter of Michael Palin's character. Her performance led to a series of appearances on various British television shows, including Emmerdale. In 1992, she was added to the cast on the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside, where she gained greater exposure in the role of Beth Jordache. She stayed on the program for two years. In 1995, Friel won the National Television Award for Most Popular Actress for her work on Brookside.
In 1996, Friel courted further controversy when she appeared in the television film The Tribe by Stephen Poliakoff, which included nudity and a much discussed ménage à trois sex scene between characters played by Friel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Jeremy Northam.
In 1998 she appeared in the original Broadway run of Closer by Patrick Marber at the Music Box Theatre in Manhattan, United States winning a Drama Desk Award and a Theatre World award for her performance as Alice. In 2001, she made her West End stage debut in London in a fringe production of Lulu which also transferred to Broadway.
Friel's film credits include playing Nick Leeson's wife Lisa in Rogue Trader opposite Ewan McGregor; David Leland's The Land Girls, which also starred Rachel Weisz and Catherine McCormack; Adam Collis Sunset Strip as Tammy Franklin, opposite Jared Leto, Simon Baker and Nick Stahl; All for Love with Richard E. Grant; A Midsummer Night's Dream as Hermia, opposite Christian Bale, Dominic West and Calista Flockhart; Timeline as Gerard Butler's object of affection; Me Without You opposite Michelle Williams; and Goal! and Goal! 2: Living the Dream.... more on wikipedia.org
