Nicola Walker

Early life

Walker was born in Stepney in the East End of London and has an older brother. She attended Saint Nicholas School, Old Harlow, and Forest School, Walthamstow, and undertook acting classes from age 12 to speak to boys. Interviewed in 2014 by The Guardian, she said, "I was really encouraged by my mother. My dad thought it was a ridiculous thing to do."

Walker then attended New Hall, Cambridge, where she started her acting career with the Cambridge Footlights. Her contemporaries included Spooks writer David Wolstencroft and comedian Sue Perkins, who were all part of the 1990 national tour. Perkins, then an older undergraduate, was assigned to be her "college mother", although Walker later said: "She was the worst college mother I could have had .. They’re meant to hold your hand. She asked to borrow my bike, got drunk and I never saw it again." Walker acted on stage as Perkins's stooge and years later their partnership was resumed when Perkins cast Walker in her sitcom Heading Out.

Career

Offered a place at RADA, on graduation from Cambridge, she already had some roles and an agent, so Walker decided to pursue her acting career. Based in London, she shared a flat with Perkins, Sarah Phelps, and Emma Kennedy, and acted at the Edinburgh Festival and the London Festival Fringe.

Television

Her first major television roles were in 1997, as Gypsy Jones in Channel 4's adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time, and as English teacher Suzy Travis in two series of Steven Moffat's school-based sitcom Chalk. She has also appeared in guest roles in episodes of series such as Dalziel and Pascoe, Jonathan Creek, Pie in the Sky, and Broken News.

She got the leading part of DI Susan Taylor in the ITV thriller serial Touching Evil in 1997, co-starring opposite Robson Green. She also appeared in its two sequel serials in 1998 and 1999. Also in 1999, she took the lead role in the post-apocalyptic drama serial The Last Train, also screened on ITV (and written by future Spooks writer Matthew Graham). Also in 2003, Walker played Molly in the BBC Radio adaptation of Neuromancer by William Gibson.

In 2003, with the production team of Kudos Television looking to replace the character played by Jenny Agutter in Series 1 of Spooks, the part of Ruth Evershed was specially written for Walker from Series 2. She remained with the show until the fifth series, during the production of which it was announced she was expecting her first child and would be leaving. She returned in 2009 and continued until the series ended in 2011. Benji Wilson of The Daily Telegraph praised Walker's performance, stating: "an actress who has squeezed every drop out of TV’s greatest ever largely dumbstruck doormat for the best part of a decade. Her scenes with Peter Firth, another fine player, have become self-contained little bubbles of weltschmerz within every recent episode".

In 2007, Walker had a prominent supporting role as a child snatcher in the ITV1 drama serial Torn and appeared in the BBC adaptation of Oliver Twist.

In 2009, she appeared as a maid in a new BBC adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, which also starred Michelle Dockery and Sue Johnston. In 2010, Walker appeared as a beleaguered wife (Linda Shand) of a murderer in an episode of the BBC1 crime thriller Luther.

In February 2011, she appeared as nervous social worker Wendy in the BBC TV series Being Human. In February 2012, she played a major character in the one off BBC crime drama Inside Men.

In 2012, 2013 and 2014/15, she appeared alongside Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid, and Sarah Lancashire, in three series of the BBC original drama Last Tango in Halifax.

In February and March 2013, Walker reunited with her former Cambridge Footlights colleague Sue Perkins in the BBC comedy Heading Out. She then appeared in the second series of Prisoners' Wives and the third series of Scott & Bailey.

Walker was again nominated for a Television BAFTA for "Best Supporting Actress" in 2014 for her role in Last Tango in Halifax, but the award was won by her co-star Sarah Lancashire.

In 2015, she appeared as Jackie "Stevie" Stevenson, the colleague of DI John River played by Stellan Skarsgård, in the BBC drama series River. She also starred as DCI Cassie Stuart, alongside actor Sanjeev Bhaskar as DS Sunil "Sunny" Khan, in the ITV drama series Unforgotten, which returned for a second series in January 2017.

Theatre

Walker won an Olivier Award in 2013 for Best Supporting Actress in her role as Judy, the main character Christopher's mother, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The play won seven Olivier Awards, equalling Matilda the Musical's record win in 2012.

In 2014, she starred alongside Mark Strong and Phoebe Fox in Arthur Miller's play A View from the Bridge, at the Young Vic theatre. The play received extremely positive reviews from critics and transferred to Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in 2015 and to the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway.

Film

In film, her roles have tended to be smaller supporting parts. Her most prominent role has been as the irritating folk singer in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), who sings "Can't Smile Without You" at the first wedding. She also appeared in the feature film adaptation of the classic television series Thunderbirds (2004).

In 2005, she portrayed a British journalist caught up in the Rwandan genocide in Shooting Dogs.

Audio

In July 2011, Walker played the significant supporting role of Medtech Liv Chenka in the Big Finish Productions Doctor Who audio drama Robophobia, opposite Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. The Chenka character proved popular both with producers and listeners, and in February 2014 Walker returned to the role, this time as a foil for Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor in Dark Eyes 2. The character was sustained throughout Dark Eyes 3 and Dark Eyes 4, at the end of which it was revealed that Chenka was to continue as the Doctor's established travelling companion. In October 2015, Walker again returned to the role in the first volume of the 4-volume Doom Coalition. In 2017, she starred in the company's adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come.

Since 2013, Walker has voiced the Norwegian detective Annika Strandhed in three series of the BBC Radio 4 drama series Annika Stranded.

Theatre credits

Personal life

She is married to actor Barnaby Kay. The couple have a son Harry (born 2006), who is named after Harry Pearce, the character of her co-star Peter Firth in Spooks.