Sophie Cookson

Cookson was brought up in Sussex and later Suffolk, where she attended Woodbridge School. She was involved in singing and musical theatre since childhood. After being part of a theatre company that had toured Japan, she quit acting to study art history and Arabic at the University of Edinburgh. However, she soon dropped out to pursue an acting career and attended the Oxford School of Drama for three years, and graduated in 2013. While still attending Oxford Drama School in her senior year, she was cast as Grace Mohune in the Sky 1 miniseries Moonfleet, based on the J. Meade Falkner novel of the same name. In early 2014, she appeared in the film adaption of the Rosamunde Pilcher novel Unknown Heart, produced by German television network ZDF, portraying Millie Lancaster. The same year, she also landed her first big screen role, replacing Emma Watson for the part of secret agent Roxanne "Roxy" Morton / Lancelot in the spy film Kingsman: The Secret Service, based on the comic book The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. Also in 2014, Cookson was cast in the female main role in Lee Tamahori's action epic Emperor, about a young woman seeking revenge for the execution of her father by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, opposite Adrien Brody as the titular Emperor. The movie was finished and screened at Cannes in 2017 but its release has been held up by legal challenges.

In 2016, she appeared in the film The Huntsman: Winter's War in a minor role as the female huntsman Pippa. Beginning in June 2017, she appeared in the Netflix series Gypsy as troubled singer Sidney Pierce. However, the series was cancelled in August after one season due to negative reviews and low ratings, even though the second season had already been in development. In July, she appeared in the horror film The Crucifixion, playing a journalist investigating a lethal exorcism performed on a nun, and in September of the same year, she reprised her role as Roxy Morton in the sequel to The Secret Service, The Golden Circle, while also appearing in a musical short for the song Pleader by British indie rock group alt-J.

In 2018, she played Dottie in the Trafalgar Studios production of the play Killer Joe, alongside Orlando Bloom.