Jenna Coleman

Biography:

Jenna-Louise Coleman was born in Blackpool on 27 April 1986 to Karen and Keith Coleman. Her father worked as a joiner specializing in bar and restaurant interiors, while her older brother Ben followed the same trade. She has English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish ancestry. Her grandmother is said to have named her after Jenna Wade, a character from the U.S. television show Dallas.

Coleman studied at Arnold School in Blackpool, where she served as head girl. From a young age, she performed on stage, appearing at age 10 in Summer Holiday at the Blackpool Opera House, and later in Snow White at age 13. During school, she joined the theatre company In Yer Space and acted in Crystal Clear at the Edinburgh Festival, earning recognition for her role. She declined an offer to study English at the University of York, choosing instead to accept the role of Jasmine Thomas in Emmerdale.

She played Jasmine from 2005, earning nominations at the British Soap Awards and National Television Awards. In 2009, she joined Waterloo Road as schoolgirl Lindsay James, which she described as surreal given her age at the time. After the show ended, she faced a six-month gap in acting work, even unsuccessfully applying to RADA, before moving to Los Angeles for auditions.

Coleman’s first film role came in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), followed by appearances in the miniseries Titanic and BBC Four’s Room at the Top. She later featured in Dancing on the Edge and Death Comes to Pemberley.

In 2012, Steven Moffat cast her as Clara Oswald, companion to the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who. Her debut came as a surprise guest character in September 2012, followed by her official introduction in the Christmas special The Snowmen. She remained a key companion through Matt Smith’s and Peter Capaldi’s runs until leaving the show in 2015 to star as Queen Victoria in ITV’s Victoria. She later returned briefly in the 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon a Time.

Her portrayal of Queen Victoria, beginning in 2016, gained acclaim and expanded into multiple series and specials. Coleman went on to star in The Cry (2018), All My Sons on stage (2019), and the BBC/Netflix drama The Serpent (2021). She also reprised her video game role as Melia Antiqua in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition and later in Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

In 2021, she was cast as Johanna Constantine in Netflix’s The Sandman, portraying both a historical and modern version of the character. She also featured in Boots UK’s Christmas campaign and worked on projects such as Klokkenluider (2022), Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons (2023), the Amazon Prime thriller Wilderness (2023), and the film Jackdaw. Most recently, she starred as Ember Manning in the BBC One crime drama The Jetty, where she also served as executive producer.

In her personal life, Coleman dated actor Richard Madden from 2011 to 2015 and Tom Hughes from 2016 to 2020. Since 2020, she has been in a relationship with director Jamie Childs, whom she met while working on The Sandman. The couple welcomed a child in 2024.