Cerrie Burnell

Burnell's mother is a dance teacher, and her father is a telecoms manager. She has one younger brother, John. She was originally named Claire but started asking people to call her "Cerrie" at the age of 10. Burnell grew up in the Orpington suburb of Petts Wood in South-East London.

Burnell was born with her right arm ending slightly below the elbow. Her parents encouraged her to wear a prosthetic arm, but she resisted from the start and stopped wearing one entirely when she was nine. Burnell also had dyslexia, which left her unable to read until the age of 10. She learned with extra tuition and the Letterland system.

Burnell has a daughter, Amelie, born in 2008. She lives in Hackney, east London.Burnell graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, where she studied acting. She has performed in theatre in the UK, where she received favourable reviews, and in Brazil with the CTORio Political Theatre Company. Burnell was also a member of National Youth Theatre. She has appeared in UK television parts in Holby City, EastEnders, Grange Hill, The Bill, and Comedy Lab. She is the author of Winged – A Fairytale, a play about Violet, a one-winged fairy in a London inner city fairy community, which she also starred in when it was staged at the Tristan Bates Theatre, London in 2007.

She starred in The First to Go by Nabil Shaban, about the "Disabled Holocaust" in Nazi Germany, playing the part of Brunhilde, at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh in 2008. Besides acting, she has worked as a teaching assistant in a special needs school.