Lia Williams

Williams was born in Birkenhead. Her first job in 1984 was understudying in the play Daisy Pulls It Off in the West End. She then took over a main role, and was talent-spotted by Alan Ayckbourn. Williams's breakthrough performance came in 1991 when she appeared in The Revengers' Comedies, for which she won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Newcomer, and a nomination for Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance in 1992.

In 1993, she created the role of Carol in the London production of David Mamet's Oleanna, at the Theatre Royal, Bath. In 1997, Williams appeared opposite Michael Gambon in London's West End and on Broadway in David Hare's Skylight, (Olivier and Tony Award nominations). In 2001, Williams appeared again in the West End and on Broadway, playing Ruth in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming. Her long-standing collaboration with Harold Pinter included roles in The Collection, Celebration, The Room, The Lover, The Hothouse and Old Times.

Other leading theatre performances include Rosalind in As You Like It for the RSC, Alan Ayckbourn's Absurd Person Singular, Henryk Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea, and Pinter's Old Times, in which she alternated the roles of Anna and Kate with Kristin Scott Thomas.

As Clytemnestra in Robert Icke's Oresteia Williams was nominated for both Olivier and Evening Standard Awards. Also for Robert Icke, she alternated the roles of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots with Juliet Stevenson in Mary Stuart.

In 2019, she played the role of Hannah Jelkes in the West End theatre production of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana at the Noël Coward Theatre opposite Clive Owen.

In Dublin, Williams appeared at the Gate Theatre as Alma in The Eccentricities of a Nightingale and Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. She won The Irish Times best Actress Award for both roles.