Vanessa Kirby

Career Highlights

Vanessa Kirby has established herself as one of the most talented actresses of her generation, with a career spanning theater, television, and film. From her early stage performances to her breakout role as Princess Margaret in The Crown, and her award-winning performance in Pieces of a Woman, Kirby continues to impress audiences and critics alike.

Career

She turned down her place at LAMDA in London after she was signed up to an agency and met the theatre director David Thacker who gave her three starring roles over 2009 at the Octagon Theatre Bolton in All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. For All My Sons she won the BIZA Rising Star Award at the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, worth £5000.

She then went on to star at the National Theatre as Isabella in Women Beware Women by Thomas Middleton directed by Marianne Elliott alongside Harriet Walter and Harry Potter’s Harry Melling. She then starred as Rosalind in As You Like It by William Shakespeare at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, where Alfred Hickling from The Guardian named her a “significant new talent”. In 2011 she was in the premiere of The Acid Test by Anya Reiss at the Royal Court Theatre directed by Simon Godwin earning praise for her performance with Paul Taylor of The Independent calling her “a star if ever I saw one”.

She has been nominated for the Ian Charleson Award for two consecutive years for five out of the six plays, 2010 and in 2011, where she won Third Prize, Ben Whishaw and Benedict Cumberbatch being previous winners.

Her TV debut in the BBC’s The Hour co-starring with Ben Whishaw, Dominic West and Romola Garai aired in 2011. She played Estella in the BBC’s adaption of Great Expectations alongside Ray Winstone, Gillian Anderson and Douglas Booth.

She played the lead role of Alice in Ridley Scott’s mini-series adaptation of Kate Mosse’s novel Labyrinth. In late 2012, she filmed The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman with Shia LaBeouf and Mads Mikkelson. Kirby then starred in Richard Curtis’s film About Time as Rachel McAdams’s best friend Joanna.

She went on to play Masha in the acclaimed production by Benedict Andrews of Three Sisters at the Young Vic in September 2012, earning rave reviews, with Matt Trueman of Time Out stating. “In a super cast given licence to shine, Kirby stands out as Masha”.

She filmed The Rise in early 2012 alongside Matthew Lewis and Timothy Spall. The film premiered at the Toronto and London Film Festivals to positive reviews, and won the Best Debut Category for director Rowan Athale.

In May 2012 it was reported that a film adaptation of Anthony Bourdain's novel 'Bone in the Throat' was being made, directed by Graham Henman, who co-wrote the script with Mark Townend. Bourdain is executive producer for the project. The film stars Ed Westwick, Tom Wilkinson, Andy Nyman, Vanessa Kirby, Rupert Graves and John Hannah. The film premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 14, 2015 but it didn't released any public distribution.

In 2013, Kirby filmed Kill Command opposite Thure Lindhardt, the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending with Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, and Queen and Country, John Boorman’s sequel to his 1987 Hope and Glory. That year Kirby returned to the National Theatre to play Queen Isabella in Edward II opposite John Heffernan.

In early 2014 she filmed Working Title’s Everest, starring alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin and Keira Knightley, playing the iconic American socialite Sandy Hill Pittman. In the summer of 2014 she played Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire, again collaborating with Benedict Andrews at the Young Vic, alongside Gillian Anderson as Blanche and Ben Foster as Stanley.

In 2015 she filmed Michael Grandage’s first film Genius, alongside Colin Firth, Jude Law and Guy Pearce. It is cited she has begun filming as the title role in new series The Frankenstein Chronicles opposite Sean Bean, The Dresser for Richard Eyre with Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen, Thea Sharrock’s adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ book Me Before You with Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke.

In May 2015 it was reported that Kirby was cast as Princess Margaret after a six month search, in Netflix’s first original British series The Crown written by Peter Morgan, directed by Stephen Daldry, opposite Matt Smith and Claire Foy. For her performance, she was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2017, and won the award for the season two in 2018. For this role, she received praise from critics and rose to international prominence.

Meanwhile, in 2016, she played Elena in Robert Icke's production of Uncle Vanya at the Almeida Theatre, for which she won rave reviews, with Matt Trueman of Variety writing that her performance: "confirms her as the outstanding stage actress of her generation, capable of the most unexpected choices".

Before the full script had even been written for 47 Meters Down, writer/director Johannes Roberts shot a short teaser designed to sell the concept to potential international buyers. It featured one female diver underwater with a menacing shark. It was played by Vanessa Kirby, at the time she wasn't well-known. Vanessa Kirby was never actually attached to star in the final 47 Meters Down movie, she just took part in the teaser. However the marketing department at Entertainment Studios used an image of her from the teaser in a full-face diving mask as the main still for 47 Meters Down in 2017.

In 2018, she came back on stage and played the title character in Polly Stenham's Julie, an adaptation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie at the Royal National Theatre.

On the big screen, she starred in two action franchise films: Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) opposite Tom Cruise and Fast and Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) alongside Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. For her role in Hobbs & Shaw, Kambole Campbell thought that: "Vanessa Kirby steals the show with wry wit and casual lethality". She also appeared in the biopic Mr Jones, who loosely tells the story of Gareth Jones. The film was directed by Agnieszka Holland and competed for the Golden Bear at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival.

On September 6, 2018, Deadline reported that director Brady Corbet had chosen the period drama The Brutalist as his next project. Vox Lux New York-based Andrew Lauren Productions (ALP) developed the screenplay with Corbet and financed the film. Corbet co-wrote the screenplay with his partner Mona Fastvold. On September 2, 2020, Deadline announced that Joel Edgerton and Marion Cotillard had been cast as the film's leads. Sebastian Stan, Vanessa Kirby, Isaach De Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy and Stacy Martin were also announced in unknown roles. Filming was scheduled to begin in Poland in January 2021. Filming was originally set to start in 2020 but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then scheduled to start in January 2021 but it was postponed to August 2021, then it was postponed again to late spring 2022. On April 11, 2023, it was announced that Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Jonathan Hyde, Emma Laird, and Peter Polycarpou would star in the film while Edgerton, Cotillard, Rylance, Stan, and Kirby were no longer attached.

During 2019, she was supposed to appear in the French thriller movie Suddenly ("Soudain Seuls"), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal; but after a disagreement between the director Thomas Bidegain and Gyllenhaal, the film was entirely rewritten and recast.

Also on 26 March 2019 Vanessa Kirby has joined the cast of The Wife director Bjorn Runge’s forthcoming science-fiction thriller StarDream. Kirby takes the lead role of Andreya in the Silver Reel and Bigscope Films-produced picture, which follows the story of a spaceship hastily constructed to transport hundreds of thousands of cryogenically frozen humans from a failing planet Earth. When the on-board computer malfunctions, coder Andreya develops an artificial intelligence-based solution that she calls Stephen. But Stephen develops a profound attachment to Andreya, compromising the mission and the future of the human race. "To play the leading role in this intergalactic drama needs an extremely sensitive and thoughtful actress who can maintain the balance in her character: I have found that actress in Vanessa Kirby," Runge said in a statement carried by Variety. “It is a tremendous honour for me to work together with her on this film." StarDream should be shooting in 2019 but it was put on hold due to the pandemic.

In 2020, Kirby portrayed Martha, a grief-stricken woman, in Kornél Mundruzcó's Pieces of a Woman, a film approaching the trauma and grief surrounding baby loss. The film received positive reviews, with Kirby garnering universal critical acclaim.[35][36] Peter Debruge wrote for Variety that "[... this is ultimately Kirby's movie, as the stage marvel [...] delivers her most impressive screen performance to date". David Fear from Rolling Stone called her performance "transcendent". Kirby won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, where the film premiered. She went on to receive various nominations, notably for the Academy Award, the Golden Globe, the BAFTA Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award.

Also at the 77th Venice International Film Festival, Kirby promoted The World to Come, directed by Mona Fastvold and also starring Katherine Waterston, the film won the Queer Lion award for best LGBTQ-themed film during the festival. In his review for The Guardian, Xan Brooks note that: "Kirby gives a fine, charismatic turn as the free-spirited Tallie". For The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey said: "Kirby’s performance is thrillingly, seductively, alive”.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 Kirby and her sister decided to form a production company dedicated to exploring the female experience. In 2021, she co-founded, with her sister Juliet, the London-based production company Aluna Entertainment. She told Harper’s Bazaar in 2023, “There have been so few female directors, female-led movies and female protagonists in the past, which means there are lots of spaces and genres in which we haven’t seen real, messy, human women on screen before. That’s a mission of mine with the company—to put women on screen who I feel are like me, rather than invincible.” In 2021 Aluna inked a multiyear deal with Netflix to develop and produce female-centric stories.

In 2023 Aluna Entertainment announced that they are partnering with The Mono Box for the launch of the new development programme ALUNA LABS. Aluna Lab series will be tailored to emerging creatives and practitioners with experience in theatre who are looking to develop their skills in film, and will consist of in-person industry panels and Q&As with filmmakers, funders and artists who work between stage and screen.

The same year, she was the leading role in the drama film Italian Studies, who had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. David Fear from Rolling Stones wrote that Kirby delivers a: "completely raw, guileless, ego-less performance".

Vanessa Kirby is Executive Producer of Italian Studies (2021) and Foudre (2022) with Aluna Entertainment. Also the upcoming movies Netflix’s Night Always Comes and Apple’s Off Season will be produced by Aluna Ent.

In 2022, she played Beth, the second wife of the character played by Hugh Jackman, in the drama film The Son directed by Florian Zeller from a screenplay written by himself and Christopher Hampton. The Son had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival. The performances of Jackman and Kirby were praised. Clayton Davis, for Variety, said: "Kirby is reinventing the wheel of acting with a masterfully executed physical portrayal".

She replaced Jodie Comer as Empress Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon Bonaparte's first wife, in the historical drama film Napoleon (2023) with Joaquin Phoenix in the title role, and directed by Ridley Scott. Inverse mentioned her performance in their review as “Kirby navigates each scene with strategic emotional dexterity, clawing her way through an inescapable emotional maze whose contours she knows better than most, but which proves no less menacing.”

She also reprised her role of Alanna Mitsopolis, alias the White Widow, in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) and expected to be in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025).

It was announced in October 2022 that Ron Howard would direct Eden was to be titled Origin of Species at that time. Casting was permitted to continue during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike after securing an interim agreement with the guild. In November, the film was retitled to Eden, with Vanessa Kirby and Sydney Sweeney added to the cast to replace Vikander and Edgar-Jones respectively, and Hans Zimmer was set to compose the score. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2024.

In May 2024, AGC Studios sold distribution rights to the film for multiple international territories to Amazon Prime Video at the Marché du Film. Eden released in Germany by Leonine Distribution on April 3, 2025 and in Italy by Italian International Film on April 10, 2025. The movie is scheduled to be released in the United States on August 22, 2025.

In February 2024, she was cast as Susan Storm / Invisible Woman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film The Fantastic Four: First Steps which is scheduled to be released on July 25, 2025, as part of Phase Six of the MCU. She will reprise the role in Avengers: Doomsday (2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027).

In March 2024, she was announced as Lynette, the leading role in the Netflix adaptation of The Night Always Comes based on the Willy Vlautin novel of the same name. Filming took place in Portland during spring 2024 and expected to release on Netflix in 2025.

In September 2024, Deadline announced that Vanessa Kirby will produce and star in 'Off Season,' a thriller penned by Andrew Sodroski that Apple acquired in a competitive situation. While specifics as to the film’s plot haven’t been disclosed, it’s described as a femme fatale thriller set in a luxury resort on Mexico’s Mayan Riviera. 42 developed the script, with Peter Dealbert and Ben Pugh to produce for the company, alongside Kirby and Lauren Dark for Aluna Entertainment. No director is yet attached to the project.

Used sources Deadline, Variety, IMBd, Wikipedia, ScreenRant, Britannica