Julia Ormond

Ormond was born in Epsom in Surrey, the daughter of Josephine, a laboratory technician, and John Ormond, a stockbroker. She has an elder sister and was five when her parents divorced. She has three younger, half-siblings from her father's second marriage. She has admitted to a fear of heights.

She was educated privately, firstly at Guildford High School and then at Cranleigh School, where early acting lead performances in Guys and Dolls and My Fair Lady began to draw attention.

After one year of art school, she transferred to Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, where she graduated in 1988. Ormond first appeared on British television in the 1989 serial Traffik, about the illegal heroin trade from the far East to the streets of Europe. Ormond played the drug addicted daughter of the lead character, a Home Office minister in the UK government engaged in combating heroin importation. This early role won glowing reviews.

Ormond appeared in several television films early in her career, such as Young Catherine (1991) and Stalin (1992). In 1993, she made her film debut in the lead role of an international movie, The Baby of Mâcon, and the following year co-starred in Legends of the Fall.

In 1995, Ormond played Queen Guinevere in First Knight and the title role in Sabrina. In 1997, she played a lead role in the thriller Smilla's Sense of Snow and, in 1998, she starred in the Russian film The Barber of Siberia.

Since the late 1990s, Ormond has appeared in indie and television movies and played supporting roles in films such as Iron Jawed Angels (2004), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Che: Part One (2008), Albatross (2011), and My Week with Marilyn (2011).

Ormond has an independent production company, Indican Productions, based in New York City, and she executive-produced the Cinemax Reel Life documentary Calling the Ghosts: A Story about Rape, War and Women, which won a CableACE Award and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and was an official selection of the Toronto and Berlin International Film Festivals.

On stage, she appeared in David Hare's My Zinc Bed, for which she received a 2001 Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress. On television, Ormond appeared as a guest star during the 2008–09 season of the CBS series CSI: NY. In 2010, she won an Emmy Award for her supporting role in the television film Temple Grandin. In 2011, Ormond guest starred in the tenth and final season of the series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In 2012, she played the part of Marie Calvet, mother to Megan Draper, in the series Mad Men, for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. From 6 October 2013 to 5 October 2014, Ormond starred in the television series Witches of East End as Joanna Beauchamp, one of the lead characters. Since 2020, she has portrayed the primary antagonist, Elizabeth Kublek, in the AMC television series The Walking Dead: World Beyond.