Suranne Jones

Early life

Jones was born Sarah Anne Jones in Chadderton, Oldham, on 27 August 1978, the daughter of Chris and Jenny Jones, an engineer and a secretary, respectively. She has a sibling, an older brother named Gary. Jones was brought up a Catholic; her priest suggested to her father she be christened Sarah Anne, instead of Suranne, her great-grandmother's name, as Suranne was not "a proper name".

Jones grew up in a house on Foxdenton Lane, surrounded by two farms and their fields and commented that one of her earliest memories is of "cows looking in the window as we ate our tea". As a child she was talkative, and later recounted that her priest would say to her: "I'm praying you can concentrate just a bit more". Jones suffers from carpophobia (fear of wrists), which she believes possibly developed from viewing imagery of Christ's crucifixion and stigmata as a child.

Jones was educated at Cardinal Langley Roman Catholic High School in Middleton, Greater Manchester. Talking of her childhood, Jones commented that "I think I always wanted to be different and felt very stifled at school". Jones also said: "I was bullied at school and I let that get hold of me and withdrew into myself — I regret letting that happen". She became a member of the Oldham Theatre Workshop, where she befriended Antony Cotton, who now plays Sean Tully on Coronation Street. She completed a BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts, though she felt "that [wasn't] quite the same as drama school".

Career beginnings

Jones began acting professionally aged 16. Andrew Billen of The Times, while acknowledging her professional career beginnings at 16, noted that "she took to the stage at 8". Jones later recalled that her first role was at the age of 8, in Wait Until Dark as Gloria. Upon joining the trade union Equity, Jones took on the stage name 'Suranne', as her birth name was already taken, and union rules dictate that each union member must have a different name. Having secured herself an agent aged 15, she soon after began to act in the theatre. Jones's television career began, however, in 1997, where she had a very small role in Coronation Street in April 1997 as Mandy Phillips, a girlfriend of Chris Collins (Matthew Marsden). She was then cast in a television advert for Maltesers, guest starred in episodes of series such as City Central and had a small role in My Wonderful Life. She auditioned for the role of Charity Dingle on the soap opera Emmerdale, becoming one of the final four actors considered for the part, though the role was eventually given to Emma Atkins. She also auditioned for the part of Geena Gregory on Coronation Street, though she felt she knew Jennifer James would win the role—which she did—upon seeing her at the auditions.

In 2000, some weeks after her unsuccessful audition for Geena Gregory, Jones was contacted by Coronation Street bosses, who offered her a part of a new character. Jones took on the role of Karen Phillips (no relation to Mandy), making her first appearance on 21 June. The character, after marrying Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson), took on his surname, and became Karen McDonald. Described as "a bulldog in hoop earrings" and a "Victoria Beckham wannabe", the role garnered Jones public attention, with episodes involving feuds between her and rival Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford) receiving millions of viewers; the episode featuring Karen and Steve's (second) wedding, ruined by Tracy Barlow's revelation that her daughter Amy Barlow was Steve's love child, received 16.3 million viewers. Jones also began modelling for men's magazines such as FHM and Loaded, saying: "I was 21, and within three weeks of me joining Corrie I was in Barbados doing a bikini shoot [...] I was quite impressionable and I'd just say yes to everything because I wanted to keep my job. The press officer is saying: 'Do this and you'll be the new young funky sexy girl.' We were all doing it at that time, but I realised quite quickly that I needed to concentrate on what I was doing".

In May 2004, it was announced that Jones was to leave Coronation Street after four years of playing Karen. She described working on a soap opera as "exhausting", remarking, "I was living and breathing Karen McDonald". She made her last appearance as Karen on Boxing Day 2004. Of her tenure as Karen McDonald on Coronation Street, Jones later remarked: "I just thought, while she's brilliant and I'm enjoying her, I've got to get out".

2005–10

Jones stated that upon her departure from Coronation Street, that she received numerous offers to appear in reality TV programmes, which she declined, quipping: "lots of money to go off and eat a crocodile's knob, or whatever". Ignoring reality TV offers, in autumn 2005, Jones starred in an ITV's detective drama series Vincent, with Ray Winstone in the title role; this was Jones's first television role since leaving Coronation Street the previous year. In the same year, she starred on the West End stage in A Few Good Men opposite Rob Lowe and John Barrowman, which earned her the Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actress. She also appeared in the musical special Celebrate Oliver! which was screened on BBC1. In 2006, she starred as Snow White in the pantomime Snow White and the Seven Dwarves at the Manchester Opera House alongside Justin Moorhouse and fellow Coronation Street actor John Savident. She also appeared in Kay Mellor's Strictly Confidential in which she played a bisexual sex therapist.

On New Year's Day 2007, Jones starred in a Yorkshire and London based black comedy, Dead Clever with Helen Baxendale and Dean Lennox Kelly on ITV1. In autumn 2007, Jones undertook a national tour in the stage run of the film Terms of Endearment, where she played Emma, opposite Linda Gray and John Bowe. In 2008 she played Martha, one of the female leads, in the ITV medical series Harley Street. Her performance drew mixed reviews, with one critic commenting on a "ludicrous" received pronunciation accent that the character possessed; the programme's tepid critical reception, combined with poor viewer ratings, signalled its end after just one series.

In January 2009, Jones appeared in Unforgiven, a three-part drama on ITV1, where she plays Ruth Slater, a woman released from prison after serving a 15-year prison sentence for the murder of two policemen. Naturally brown-haired, Jones dyed her hair "tobacco yellow" with "big roots"; Jones joked that whilst not filming she "really should have worn a wig". Additionally, the character of Ruth wore no make-up throughout, with Jones stating she was left feeling "quite exposed", but nonetheless saying "Ruth wouldn't have worn any make-up, I don't think". Jones received favourable reviews for her portrayal, with Brian Viner of The Independent writing: "a stunning performance, the stuff of Bafta nominations if ever I saw it. Heck, on the back of it she might even get propelled into the movies, and bring a bit of North Country sense to the Golden Globes". Viner summarised his review of Unforgiven by stating, "Five stars all round, and six for Jones". Jones later stated, "I loved that role. They don't come along that often. It was seen by the broadsheets as well as the tabloids. It gave me a little bit of credibility, I suppose".

Later in the year, in November, she played the role of the Mona Lisa in the two-part episode "Mona Lisa's Revenge" in The Sarah Jane Adventures. In December, Jones starred in the Manchester Royal Exchange's production of Blithe Spirit, by Noël Coward, which ran until late January 2010. Jones was nominated for The Times Breakthrough Award at the 2010 South Bank Show Awards, the last ever ceremony, but lost to David Blandy. When discussing her nomination she said, "You do question 'What am I breaking through?' Am I breaking through the perception of people who just thought I was a screaming banshee in Coronation Street? Is it that I've worked hard and I've got better? Is it that now it's alright to say that I'm alright? I don't know what I was breaking through, but I knew that it was nice to feel included and patted on the back for a lot of hard work". Jones was described by Andrew Billen of The Times as being in a category of "those brave, talented few who earn their wings on a soap and then fly gloriously beyond it". In March 2010 Jones starred in Five Days, a non-connected sequel to the 2007 series of the same name, as the female lead DC Laurie Franklin. Later in the year, she starred as Sarah in Single Father on BBC1, a character who falls in love with a widower, Dave (David Tennant), who was married to her best friend before her death.

2011–2016

In May 2011, Jones played the central character of Idris in the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife". Jones was cast due to writer Neil Gaiman wanting an actress, in the words of Jones, who is "odd; beautiful but strange-looking, and quite funny" to play the role of Idris. Dan Martin, reviewer for The Guardian, noted that "Suranne Jones arguably sets the standard by which all guest stars must now be judged here [...] Jones was electrifying throughout". Later, Jones played DC Rachel Bailey in ITV's detective series, Scott & Bailey, opposite Lesley Sharp, who plays DC Janet Scott. The series is based upon an original idea by Jones and Sally Lindsay, her former Coronation Street co-star. After strong viewing figures and moderate critical success Scott & Bailey returned for a further four series between 2012 and 2016, with Jones serving as an executive producer on series five.

In July 2011, Jones starred as Marlene, a career-woman living in Thatcher's Britain, in the Minerva Theatre's production of Top Girls by Caryl Churchill in Chichester. Michael Billington, reviewer for The Guardian, remarked that "Suranne Jones captures excellently the hidden regrets of the go-getting Marlene". The production was later transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios. In August 2011, it was announced that Jones would star alongside John Hannah in a spoof detective drama written by Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier called A Touch of Cloth. The programme aired in August 2012 on Sky1. Jones plays DC Anne Oldman, the "plucky, no-nonsense sidekick" of DCI Jack Cloth (Hannah). In March 2012, Jones began filming The Secret of Crickley Hall, a BBC1 dramatisation of the 2006 best selling novel by James Herbert. She plays the lead role of Eve Caleigh, a woman who moves to Crickley Hall in an attempt to move on from the loss of her son, only to be haunted by supernatural occurrences. Jones described the series as a "classic haunted house spine-chiller with an emotional family story at its heart." Jones returned to the London stage in 2013 in a 20th anniversary revival of Jonathan Harvey's play, Beautiful Thing. The play ran between 13 April and 25 May at the Arts Theatre, London, before a Short national tour. In 2013 Jones starred as herself in Playhouse Presents: "Stage Door Johnnies", a comedy mockumentary about obsessive theatre fans airing on Sky Arts. Later that year, Jones played a young judge "battling to keep her head above water in the murky depths of the justice system" in Lawless, a television pilot, broadcast on Sky1 as part of its Drama Matters strand.

In August, it was announced that Jones was cast opposite Hermione Norris and Oona Chaplin in The Crimson Field, a BBC drama set in a field hospital in France during the First World War. The drama, for which began filming in August and was broadcast in April 2014, marked Jones's first acting appearance in a period drama. In February 2014, Jones starred in Sarah Ruhl's stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. The play received generally positive reviews from critics, with Jones's performance being described as "superb" by Matt Trueman in The Guardian, though Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail gave a more mixed review, stating that Jones "perhaps lacks the necessary ethereal quality" for the role. In September 2015, Jones starred as the titular character in the BBC One thriller Doctor Foster, as a GP whose life begins to unravel when she suspects her husband of infidelity. The programme earned critical acclaim, with Radio Times noting that "a career-best Suranne Jones was unstoppably brilliant"; the magazine placed Doctor Foster second in a roundup of the Top 40 best television shows of 2015. For her performance, Jones received the National Television Award for Best Drama Performance, the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Actress, the Royal Television Society Award for Best Actor (female) and the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress at the respective 2016 ceremonies.

2017-present

In July 2017 it was announced that Jones will portray the lead role of Anne Lister–an educated, well travelled industrialist living a lesbian lifestyle in 1830's Yorkshire–in the BBC1/HBO historical drama series Gentleman Jack. The series will be Jones' fourth collaboration with Sally Wainwright who wrote Dead Clever, Unforgiven and Scott & Bailey and who will write, produce and direct Gentleman Jack. Jones relished the chance to be directed for the first time by Wainwright anticipating an "immediate, exciting and new" connection between the pair whilst Wainwright deemed Jones the perfect actress to bring "boldness, subtlety, energy and humour" to Lister.

Between 9 February and 5 May 2018 Jones' will return to west end theatre in a revival of Bryony Lavery's successful stage play Frozen at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Jones will portray the grieving mother of a missing child opposite Jason Watkins as the child's killer.

Personal life

Jones lives in London with her husband, magazine editor Laurence Akers. They met at a wedding in 2014, and married later that year. Jones gave birth to a son in March 2016.

Jones has been involved with various charitable organisations. When Jones was a teenager, her mother Jenny was diagnosed with breast cancer, with Jones saying, "At the time we did a breast cancer campaign together. I still do a lot of charity runs". Jones also has worked with Christian Aid, travelling to Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo (the latter accompanied by Sally Lindsay), helping with projects concerning HIV, women's rights and child soldiers.