Sally Hawkins Biography

English actress Sally Hawkins won an Oscar nomination for her lead role in the 2017 film The Shape of Water.

Before that, she was best known as Hoppy, the main character in the comedy Happy-Go-Lucky, even after getting an Oscar nomination for her supporting role in Blue Jasmine (2013).

A 1998 graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she worked in the London theater before jumping into film and television with All or Nothing (2002) and the miniseries Fingersmith (2005) and Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (2005).

She broke out on the big screen in 2008 as Poppy, the lead in the Mike Leigh film Happy-Go-Lucky, winning a Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy.

Although most of her film roles have been in small parts in independent films, she starred in the BBC miniseries Persuasion (2007), and as Cate Blanchett‘s sister, the Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine.

Her other films include Layer Cake (2004, starring Daniel Craig), Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream (2007), An Education (2009, starring Carey Mulligan) and Never Let Me Go (2010, with Mulligan and Keira Knightley).

The Shape of Water earned 13 Oscar nominations, including for director/writer Guillermo del Toro and supporting actors Octavia Spencer and Richard Jenkins.