A Dame-in-Waiting

Lesley Manville has gone toe-to-toe with Daniel Day-Lewis and been married to Gary Oldman. But with myriad new projects—and a fashion campaign for Loewe—she’s never been more front and center

By Charlotte Williamson

It’s hard to imagine an actor more industrious than Lesley Manville. Especially one who has been nominated for an Oscar (Phantom Thread) and numerous Baftas (The Crown, Sherwood, Mum), won an Olivier for her turn in Ibsen’s Ghosts, charmed the socks off audiences in Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, has a CBE (surely a damehood can’t be far off) and is generally one of our most beloved performers.

“You’re my day off!” she says cheerfully, sitting in a west London brasserie not far from where she lives. “I’m solidly booked up until the middle of 2026.” Warm, funny and fizzing with energy, Manville, 68, looks supremely elegant on this hot August morning in a long navy dress, hair swept back from her face revealing the violet-blue eyes that she used to such devastating effect when she stared straight into the camera as Cyril Woodcock in Phantom Thread.