Celia Imrie is an Olivier award-winning and Screen Actors Guild-nominated actress, a Variety magazine ‘Icon’ and Women in Film and Television ‘Lifetime Achievement award’ winner. As well as her acclaimed film, television and theatre work, she is also a Sunday Times best-selling author. Celia is much loved for her film roles including The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel film series, The Bridget Jones film series, Calendar Girls, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, Finding Your Feet and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Most recent film work include Mrs Green in independent horror feature, Malevolent and Joan Erikson in Year By The Sea.Television roles include, Phyllis in Pamela Adlon’s semi-autobiographical comedy Better things, Kettle in Sky Atlantic and Showtime’s Patrick Melrose, Vera in Barbara Vine’s A Dark Adapted Eye and Maggie Pit in unconventional comedy Hang Ups.Celia also has an extensive list of theatre credits and she has performed in many of London’s major theatres. These include, Tony and Olivier Award winning comedy Noises Off at The Old Vic Theatre, Acorn Antiques: The Musical! at Theatre Royal Haymarket in which Celia won the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2005, The Sea at The National Theatre opposite Dame Judi Dench and the universally acclaimed production of King Lear at the Old Vic in 2016.Celia will soon take to the stage in Party Time/Celebration, the sixth double-bill of one-act plays in The Jamie Lloyd Company’s Pinter at the Pinter Season, commemorating the 10th anniversary of Nobel Prize-winning writer Harold Pinter.
Celia Imrie
Movies
Calendar Girls
Middle aged Chris Harper (Dame Helen Mirren) and Annie Clarke (Dame Julie Walters) are best friends. They spend much of their time at their local Knapely, Yorkshire County chapter of the Women’s Institute (WI), whose motto is “enlightenment, fun, and friendship”. Although they like most of the women at the…
Songs
Fun Facts
Has a son, Angus Imrie (b. 1994), with actor Benjamin Whitrow.
She appeared with her son, Angus Imrie, in the UK TV series Kingdom (2007), playing mother and son.
Established stage actress.
Worked extensively with Victoria Wood.
Has a house in London and also rents a flat in Swaffham in Norfolk.
Daughter of Diana Elizabeth Blois (Cator) and David Andrew Imrie, a radiologist. Her father was Scottish, from Glasgow. Her mother was English, and also had Scottish and Northern Irish ancestry.
Trained at the Guildford School of Acting.
She won the 2006 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Role in a Musical for her performance in "Acorn Antiques The Musical"".
Daughter of David Andrew (1892-1972) and Diana Elizabeth (née Blois) Imrie (1913-1999).
When Imrie was fourteen
Quotes
Discussing her character in 'Wah-Wah': A friend of mine came to see a screening and said, 'Ceels, I was longing for you to suddenly become funny. And you didn't'. I said, 'I know, it's quite weird isn't it?' Originally Richard offered me another part but I said, 'yes, but what about this old bag?'
On Victoria Wood: I first met her through her university friends in Birmingham. I was in the room applauding when she won New Faces and she then rather loyally came to see me in a chorus line in a pantomime. She's been terribly loyal to me and I'm very proud to be working with her at the moment.
On Alan Bates: I'd known him for years and absolutely adored him. He really is naughty. Terrible. Or was, God bless him. But then, you see, Dame Judi's got that too. Everybody who's ever been one of my heroes is very naughty. Naughty sense of humor. Naughty sparkle in their eye.
When asked about Star Wars: I'm amazed anyone recognized me covered up in that hat and goggles. The casting director had seen me in a Harold Pinter play and asked me to be in Star Wars - how bizarre is that? I think I was originally up for the part of the mother at the beginning of the film but, when I didn't get it, they asked me to be a fighter pilot instead. I can't pretend I was a life-long Star Wars fan but I did think it would be rather cool for my son if his mum was in the film. He was little at the time so, when we went to see it, he went to sleep and missed me, but he got to see it with his school friends later. None of us knew what the story was, though. Because the producers are so worried about leaks, we had no idea how we fitted into the film. It was just terribly exciting to be on the set and part of a phenomenon like Star Wars.
Discussing working with George Lucas: He's very cool, as you'd expect....he asked me to take off my lipstick though. As I was going to be the first female pilot they'd ever used, I thought I'd put on some lipstick, and make an effort.
On her co-star in Kingdom: We all love Stephen (Fry) and we are a great team. I am very lucky.
(On how she developed her character in Wah-Wah) I sought out, wherever we went on location, friends of Richard's who had known the rather remarkable, as I daily discovered, Lady Riva that my character was based on. I tried to incorporate as many of her qualities and idiosyncrasies as I could. I also absorbed all the details of precious film footage of the day, that Richard [E. Grant] found for us. The subjects' behavior, and fashion, during social and historic events was a fascinating help.
(On what attracted her to her character in Wah-Wah) I couldn't believe Lady Riva Hardwick could be so ghastly and thought that, (a) it would be fun to play someone so utterly uncompromising and, (b) there must be more to her than meets the eye, and it would be a challenge to find it. I was also so taken up with the story of the film and our Director's enthusiasm and belief, I just wanted to jump on board and fly with him.