Rise to Fame
The route from Oxford's English faculty to a Sundance jury prize isn't obvious, but she made it look inevitable. After earning a 2:1 in English at Wadham College, she traded academia for indie dramas, landing the Special Jury Prize at Sundance for Like Crazy in 2011. The Theory of Everything was the real arrival: playing Jane Hawking, she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination, and the real Jane Hawking has said watching her felt like watching herself.
In the Spotlight
A billion-dollar Star Wars film in 2016 could have locked her into the franchise pipeline for good. Instead she founded Piecrust Productions and spent the next decade picking parts nobody else was fighting for. The Brutalist delivered her second Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actress, a full decade after her first. Two nominations in two different categories across ten years is a neat trick even when the industry only notices one at a time.
Side Notes
She prepared for Rogue One by consulting Wookieepedia, which is either extremely professional or exactly what you'd expect from someone with a 2:1 in English from Oxford. The academic rigor applies everywhere: she learned snowboarding for Chalet Girl and met Jane Hawking before filming The Theory of Everything. Her uncle Michael Hadley was an actor, but it was her father's connection to Central Television that put her in after-school TV workshops at 11, and she never quite stopped.