Olivia Colman

She spent a decade playing the girlfriend in Peep Show, which, for a show about catastrophically awkward men, is its own kind of thankless job. The pivot to drama came with Tyrannosaur (2011), a film almost nobody saw but the industry couldn't ignore. Broadchurch made her a household name. The Oscar for The Favourite arrived on her first nomination, upsetting Glenn Close who'd been the prohibitive frontrunner. She was reportedly too drunk at the ceremony to remember it. Nobody becomes America's underdog pick the same way twice.

Playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown is the kind of role that either canonizes you or swallows you whole. For Colman it did both. She won the Golden Globe and Emmy, which confirms the critical consensus, and then described herself as a 'leftie monarchist' after spending years playing a woman she'd spent her life philosophically opposed to. She's now one of those actors who gets cast not because she fits a role but because directors want to build around her presence. The question isn't whether she'll work; it's whether she'll pick something interesting enough.

Her name isn't even really hers. She was born Sarah Colman, but Equity already had one, so she became Olivia. She cleaned houses professionally in Cambridge before acting paid off. For The Favourite she gained 16kg to play Queen Anne, then convinced a director to cast her in The Night Manager while heavily pregnant by citing Frances McDormand in Fargo as precedent. McDormand later handed her that Oscar alongside Sam Rockwell. She describes herself as intensely shy and works with a therapist to handle public life.