Detailed Biography

Anna Chancellor is a British actress.

Family

Chancellor was born in Richmond, England, the daughter of the Hon. Mary Joliffe and former Reuters chairman Sir John Chancellor. Through her mother, Chancellor is the great-great-granddaughter of Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, and through her father, she is the great-great-granddaughter of the Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham. Her uncle is journalist Alexander Chancellor and her eight-times great aunt was author Jane Austen.

Chancellor was accepted into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, but in her third year she became pregnant and dropped out. Her daughter with cult Scots poet Jock Scott, Poppy, was born in 1988. When their relationship ended, she then married a cameraman, Nigel Willoughby, whom she had met in 1993 while shooting a Boddington's advert. However, they divorced in 1999. She now lives with an Algerian cabdriver several years her junior, Redha, who is now a sound technician.

Career

Chancellor is perhaps best known for her performance as "Duckface" in Four Weddings and a Funeral opposite Hugh Grant. She has also been noted for her work as Caroline Bingley in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and as Questular Rontok in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In 2005, she joined the cast of the popular BBC One television drama series Spooks as a new regular character, Juliet Shaw. She has also appeared in Jupiter Moon, Karaoke, Cold Lazarus, The Dreamers, and Tipping the Velvet, and has a starring role in the satirical black comedy Suburban Shootout.

Controversy

Anna Chancellor caused minor controversy when, on This Morning, she was asked about why her character in Four Weddings and a Funeral was called 'Duckface', to which she replied "Actually it was originally supposed to be Fuckface". This caused several viewers to complain, despite Richard and Judy apologising immediately afterwards.