Jodhi May

May was born to a French mother who was an art teacher and a German father. Film producer Alain Poiré was her godfather and she credits him for inspiring her passion for film while growing up.

May was educated at Camden School for Girls. She started her acting career at 12 years old and later studied English at Wadham College, Oxford. May first acted at the age of 12, in A World Apart (1988). For the role she received a Best Actress award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, shared with her co-stars Barbara Hershey and Linda Mvusi.

Other roles have included Alice Munro in Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans, Lea Papin in Sister My Sister, Lady Sarah Lennox in Aristocrats, Florence Banner in Tipping the Velvet. Anne Boleyn in the first adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl (2003). May played Janet Stone in the 2011 noir thriller I, Anna, alongside Gabriel Byrne, Charlotte Rampling, Eddie Marsan, and Honor Blackman.

In 2018, as a writer, she contributed and appeared in the TV series Moving On. In 2019, she played Queen Calanthe in The Witcher, Netflix's live-action adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's book series.

In 2020, alongside Valentina Cervi, Francesco Scianna, Filippo Timi, she was in the cast of Marco Simon Puccioni's film The Invisible Thread, produced by Netflix, released in 2022.