Eve Best

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title: "Eve Best" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["actresses-from-london", "alumni-of-lincoln-college,-oxford", "alumni-of-the-royal-academy-of-dramatic-art", "critics'-circle-theatre-award-winners", "drama-desk-award-winners", "english-stage-actresses", "english-television-actresses", "english-radio-actresses", "laurence-olivier-award-winners", "living-people", "english-shakespearean-actresses", "people-educated-at-wycombe-abbey", "1971-births", "theatre-world-award-winners", "actors-from-the-royal-borough-of-kensington-and-chelsea", "people-from-ladbroke-grove", "20th-century-english-actresses", "21st-century-english-actresses"] description: "British actress (born 1971)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Best" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British actress (born 1971) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
image	Eve Best Laughing.jpg
caption	Eve Best in 2007
birth_name	Emily Frances Finlay Best
birth_date
birth_place	Hammersmith, London, England
education	{{indented plainlist
occupation	Actress, director
years_active	1995–present
::

| image = Eve Best Laughing.jpg | caption = Eve Best in 2007 | birth_name = Emily Frances Finlay Best | birth_date = | birth_place = Hammersmith, London, England | education = {{indented plainlist|

• Lincoln College, Oxford (BA)
• Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (GrDip) | occupation = Actress, director | years_active = 1995–present Emily "Eve" Frances Finlay Best (born 31 July 1971) is an English actress and director. She is known for her television roles as Dr Eleanor O'Hara in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie (2009–2015), First Lady Dolley Madison in the American Experience television special (2011), Monica Chatwin in the BBC miniseries The Honourable Woman (2014) and Princess Rhaenys Targaryen in HBO's House of the Dragon (2022–2024). She also played Wallis Simpson in the 2010 film The King's Speech.

Best won the 2006 Olivier Award for Best Actress for playing the title role in Hedda Gabler. She made her Broadway debut in the 2007 revival of A Moon for the Misbegotten, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play, and receiving the first of two nominations for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play; the second was for the revival of The Homecoming in 2008. She returned to Broadway in the 2015 revival of Old Times.

Early life and education

Best was born in Hammersmith, London and grew up in Ladbroke Grove, London. She is the daughter of Alastair Finlay Best, a design journalist and Susanna Joan Best (née Pulford), a theatre director; her mother founded a theatre company called Shakespeare Link, which aimed to spread Shakespeare’s word. Her parents married in Chelsea, London in 1968. She also has a younger sister Joscelyn Elizabeth born in 1973. Her early performances were with the W11 Opera children's opera company in London at the age of nine. She attended Wycombe Abbey Girls' School before going on to Lincoln College, Oxford, where she studied English. After graduating from Oxford where she had appeared in Oxford University Dramatic Society productions and performed at the Edinburgh Festival, she made her professional debut as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the Southwark Playhouse.

Career

After working on the London fringe, Best trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. After graduating in 1999 she appeared in a revival of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore at the Young Vic for which she won both the Evening Standard and Critics' Circle best newcomer awards; she adopted her grandmother's name as a stage name, as an Emily Best was already registered with British Actors' Equity Association.

Best won a Laurence Olivier Award for playing the title role in Hedda Gabler and was nominated for the same award the following year for her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's play A Moon for the Misbegotten at the Old Vic Theatre in London.

In early 2007, she starred in a Sheffield Crucible production of As You Like It which played for a short time at the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford as part of their Complete Works season. In the same year she performed in the Broadway transfer of A Moon for the Misbegotten for which she was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Play.

Best appeared in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Cort Theatre in New York, which co-starred Ian McShane, Raúl Esparza and Michael McKean. Daniel Sullivan directed the 20-week limited engagement, which ran until 13 April 2008. She once again appeared as Beatrice in a critically acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2011, playing opposite Charles Edwards as Benedick and starred in the Old Vic production of The Duchess of Malfi in 2012. She made her directorial debut with a production of Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in 2013.

Television appearances include Prime Suspect: The Final Act (2006), Waking the Dead (2004), Shackleton (2002), and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries (2005).

She appeared as Lucrece in the Naxos audiobook version of Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece. She also starred in a 2000 BBC Radio 4 production of Emma.

Best co-starred as Dr Eleanor O'Hara in the Showtime dark comedy series Nurse Jackie, that premiered in June 2009. She played the Duchess of Windsor – Wallis Simpson – in The King's Speech, starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush.

Best also co-starred as Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, alongside William Hurt in The Challenger Disaster, a British made for TV dramatization of the Rogers Commission set up to investigate the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

In summer 2014 Best played Cleopatra, the leading role in the Shakespeare's Globe version of Antony and Cleopatra. She returned to Broadway in the 2015 revival of the Pinter play Old Times, opposite Clive Owen and Kelly Reilly. She played headmistress Farah Dowling in Fate: The Winx Saga.

The TV series Maryland aired in May 2023 on ITV1, with Best playing Rosaline, who is reuniting with her sister Becca (Suranne Jones) after their mother's body is found dead on the Isle of Man.

Wild Cherry by Nicôle Leckey presents Best as Juliet Londsdale, Lord's daughter, mother to a teenage daughter and author of a parenting guide, alongside Carmen Ejogo as Lorna Gibbons, mother of her daughter's best friend. Their privileged lifes fall apart when their daughters are embroiled in a scandal at a private school in the Home Counties.

Filmography

Film

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2001	Brilliant!	Nina	(short)
2002	Shackleton	Eleanor Shackleton	TV movie
2004	The Lodge	Yuni	(short)
2010	The King's Speech	Wallis Simpson
2014	Someone You Love	Kate
2014	Unity	Narrator	Documentary
2023	Such A Lovely Day	Auntie Annie	(short)
::

Television

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	The Bill	Anne	Episode: Beasts
2000	Casualty	Amber Hope	Episode: Seize the Night
2001	The Infinite Worlds of H. G. Wells	Ellen McGillvray	TV mini-series
2004	Waking the Dead	Natasha Bloom	Episode: Shadowplay: Part 1
2004	Lie With Me	Roselyn Tyler	TV mini-series
2005	The Inspector Lynley Mysteries	Amanda Gibson	Episode: In Divine Proportion
2006	Prime Suspect: The Final Act	Linda Philips
2006	Vital Signs	Sarah Cartwright	6 episodes
2009–2013, 2015	Nurse Jackie	Dr Eleanor O'Hara	{{indented plainlist
2010	American Experience	Dolley Madison	Episode: Dolley Madison
2010	The Shadow Line	Petra Mayler	3 episodes
2012	Up All Night	Yvonne Encanto	Episode: New Boss
2013	The Challenger Disaster	Sally Ride
2014	New Worlds	Angelica Fanshawe	Episodes 1–3
2014	The Honourable Woman	Monica Chatwin	Episodes 1–8
2015	Life in Squares	Vanessa Bell
2016–2017	Stan Lee's Lucky Man	Anna Clayton	Main cast
2021–2022	Fate: The Winx Saga	Farah Dowling	Main cast (season 1, 6 episodes; season 2, 1 episode)
2022–2024	House of the Dragon	Rhaenys Targaryen	Main cast
2023	Maryland	Rosaline	Main cast (ITV series, 3 episodes)
2023	The Crown	Carole Middleton	2 episodes
2025	Wild Cherry	Juliet Lonsdale	Main cast
::

Stage

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Role	Location
1995	Much Ado About Nothing	Beatrice	Southwark Playhouse, London
1996	Sisters, Brothers		Gate Theatre, London
1999	'Tis Pity She's a Whore	Annabella	Young Vic, London
2000	The Heiress	Catherine	Royal National Theatre, London
2000	The Cherry Orchard	Varya	Royal National Theatre, London
2001	Macbeth	Lady Macbeth	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2002	The Misanthrope	Jennifer	Chichester Festival Theatre
2002	The Coast of Utopia	Liubov Bakunin	Royal National Theatre, London
2003	Three Sisters	Masha	Royal National Theatre, London
2003	Mourning Becomes Electra	Lavinia Mannon	Royal National Theatre, London
2005	Hedda Gabler	Hedda	Almeida, London and Duke of York's Theatre, London
2006–07	A Moon for the Misbegotten	Josie	Old Vic, London and Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York
2007	As You Like It	Rosalind	Sheffield Crucible and Swan Theatre (Stratford)
2007–08	The Homecoming	Ruth	Cort Theatre, New York
2011	Much Ado About Nothing	Beatrice	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2012	The Duchess of Malfi	The Duchess	Old Vic, London
2013	Macbeth	Director	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2014	Antony and Cleopatra	Cleopatra	Shakespeare's Globe, London
2015	Old Times	Anna	American Airlines Theatre, Broadway
2017	Love in Idleness	Olivia Brown	Menier Chocolate Factory, Apollo Theatre, London
2017	A Woman of No Importance	Mrs Arbuthnot	Vaudeville, London
::

Awards and nominations

::data[format=table]

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result	Ref.
1999	Evening Standard Award	The Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer	'Tis Pity She's a Whore
1999	Critics' Circle Theatre Award	The Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer (other than a playwright)	'Tis Pity She's a Whore
2003	Critics' Circle Theatre Award	Best Actress	Mourning Becomes Electra
2005	Critics' Circle Theatre Award	Best Actress	Hedda Gabler
2006	Laurence Olivier Award	Best Actress	Hedda Gabler
2007	Drama Desk Award	Outstanding Actress in a Play	A Moon for the Misbegotten
2007	Outer Critics Circle Award	Outstanding Actress in a Play	A Moon for the Misbegotten		title=Coast of Utopia Is Big Winner in Outer Critics Circle Awards
2007	Laurence Olivier Award	Best Actress	A Moon for the Misbegotten
2007	Tony Award	Best Actress	A Moon for the Misbegotten
2008	Tony Award	Best Actress	The Homecoming
2008	Outer Critics Circle Award	Outstanding Actress in a Play	The Homecoming
::

References

References

1. Sercher, Benjamin. (2013-06-19). "Eve Best interview: on returning to the stage as a director". The Telegraph.
2. [http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/Shows-Events/Old-Times.aspx ''Old Times''] {{Webarchive. link. (13 July 2016 at the [[American Airlines Theatre]], [[Roundabout Theatre Company]])
3. "Shakespeare Link".
4. Matt Trueman. (2012-08-11). "Forging a Direct Path to the Future: JMK Award". [[The Stage]].
5. Paddock, Terri. (18 August 2003). "20 Questions With...Eve Best". What's on Stage.
6. Henderson, Kathy. "Fresh Face: Eve Best". Broadway.com.
7. "Hedda Gabler". almeida.co.uk.
8. "''A Moon for the Misbegotten''". The Old Vic.
9. Billington, Michael. (2007-02-08). "As You Like It". The Guardian.
10. "''As You Like It''". The British Universities Film & Video Council.
11. Brantley, Ben. (2007-04-10). "A Moonlit Night on the Farm, Graveyard Ready". The New York Times.
12. Wolf, Matt. (2007-05-16). "We should cheer, and weep, at the Tony Awards nominations". The Guardian.
13. Brantley, Ben. (2007-12-17). "You Can Go Home Again, but You'll Pay the Consequences". The New York Times.
14. "Much Ado About Nothing [2011]". Shakespeare's Globe.
15. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair". Shakespeare's Globe.
16. "''Nurse Jackie'': Official Site". Sho.com.
17. "Two lovers are blown apart by love and war". Shakespeare's Globe.
18. Hough, Q. (2021-01-26). "Fate: Is [SPOILER] Really Dead In The Winx Saga? How They Can Return".
19. Mangan, Lucy. (2023-05-22). "Maryland review – no one is more moving than Suranne Jones". The Guardian.
20. (2023-05-23). "ITV Maryland: Cast, storyline, episodes, and filming locations". The Economic Times.
21. Jureidini, Ben. (2025-11-14). "Acting royalty: how Eve Best went from Wallis Simpson to Wild Cherry via Westeros".
22. "Brilliant!". British Council.
23. Lawson, Mark. (2004-11-15). "The cop stays in the picture". The Guardian.
24. (2014-08-18). "Phoebe Fox, Lydia Leonard, Sam Hoare and James Norton to star in Life in Squares for BBC Two". BBC.
25. (10 April 2012). "Evening Standard Theatre Awards 1955-2000".
26. (27 January 2014). "Spot the Oscar winners of tomorrow at the Critics' Circle theatre awards".
27. "Critics' Circle Theatre Awards 2004 announced".
28. "Critics' Circle Theatre Awards 2004 announced".
29. "Olivier Winners 2006".
30. "Drama Desk Awards 2006-2007 winners announced".
31. "Coast of Utopia Is Big Winner in Outer Critics Circle Awards".
32. "Olivier Winners 2007".
33. (15 May 2007). "61st Annual Tony Award Winners".
34. (16 June 2008). "62nd Annual Tony Award Winners".
35. (12 May 2008). "2007–2008 Outer Critics Circle Award Winners Announced".

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