Rose Eleanor Arbuthnot-Leslie (born 9 February 1987) is a Scottish actress. She is known for her roles as Gwen Dawson in the ITV drama series ''

Downton Abbey ''Downton Abbey'' is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. The series first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on 26 September 2010 and in the United States o ...

'' and

Ygritte George R. R. Martin's ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' saga features a large cast of characters. The series follows three interwoven plotlines: a dynastic war for control of Westeros by several families; the rising threat of the superhuman Others beyo ...

in the HBO fantasy series '' Game of Thrones'', as well as playing Maia Rindell in three seasons of the

CBS All Access Paramount+ is an American subscription video on-demand service owned by Paramount Global. The service's content is drawn primarily from the libraries of CBS Media Ventures (including CBS Studios), Paramount Media Networks (formerly Viacom Media ...

legal and political drama ''

The Good Fight ''The Good Fight'' is an American legal drama produced for CBS's streaming service CBS All Access (later Paramount+). It is the platform's first original scripted series. The series, created by Robert King, Michelle King, and Phil Alden Robin ...

'' and starring as Clare Abshire in HBO's ''The Time Traveler's Wife''.

Early life and ancestry

Leslie was born in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Scotland, and raised at Lickleyhead Castle in Aberdeenshire, her family's 15th-century ancestral seat, where she lived until the age of 10. Her father, Sebastian Arbuthnot-Leslie, is the

Chieftain A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categorized a ...

of the Aberdeenshire branch of the Scottish

Clan Leslie Clan Leslie is a Lowland Scottish clan. The progenitor of the Clan, Bartolf'','' was a nobleman from Hungary, who came to Scotland in 1067. He built a castle at Lesselyn, from which the clan name derives. Clan Chief, the Earl of Rothes From 1 ...

. Her mother is Candida Mary Sibyl "Candy" Leslie (née Weld) of

Clan Fraser of Lovat Clan Fraser of Lovat ( gd, Friseal french: link=yes, Fraiser) is a Highland Scottish clan and the principal branch of Clan Fraser. The Frasers of Lovat are strongly associated with Inverness and the surrounding area since the Clan's founder gaine ...

, whose maternal great-grandfather was

Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat and 2nd Baron Lovat (21 December 1828 – 6 September 1887) was a Scottish nobleman and soldier. He was responsible for overseeing the reconstruction of Beaufort Castle, and was the 22nd Chief of Clan Fraser of Lov ...

and a descendant of King Charles II. Through her mother, Leslie is a great-great-granddaughter of

Frederick Weld Sir Frederick Aloysius Weld (9 May 1823 – 20 July 1891), was a New Zealand politician and a governor of various British colonies. He was the List of Prime Ministers of New Zealand, sixth Prime Minister of New Zealand, premier of New Zealand, ...

, the sixth prime minister of New Zealand and, through her father, she is a great-great-granddaughter of Don Guillermo Landa y Escandón, who served as governor of Mexico City. Leslie's ancestors include

Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps De Lisle Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps de Lisle (17 March 1809 – 5 March 1878) was a British Roman Catholic convert. He founded Mount St Bernard Abbey, a Trappist abbey in Leicestershire, and worked for the reconversion or reconciliation of Britain t ...

, politician

Charles March-Phillipps Charles March-Phillipps (28 May 1779 – 24 April 1862) was a British Radical politician from Garendon Park in Leicestershire. He sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1818 and 1837. Personal life He was the eldest son of Thoma ...

and MP

James Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam James Walter Grimston, 3rd Earl of Verulam (11 May 1852 – 11 November 1924), known as Viscount Grimston from 1852 to 1895, was a British Conservative Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1892. He inherited his peerage in ...

. Her family currently lives at the 12th-century Wardhill Castle in Old Rayne. She was first educated at Rayne North School in Aberdeenshire. At 10, she went to Ermitage International School in

Maisons-Laffitte Maisons-Laffitte () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the northern Île-de-France region of France. It is a part of the affluent outer suburbs of northwestern Paris, from its centre. In 2018, it had a population of 23,611. Maisons-Laf ...

, France, where her family lived for 3 years. Upon their return to the UK, from 2000 to 2005, she was sent to Millfield, a boarding school in Street,

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, before spending three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She won a BASSC certificate in

stage combat Stage combat, fight craft or fight choreography is a specialised technique in theatre designed to create the illusion of physical combat without causing harm to the performers. It is employed in live stage plays as well as operatic and ballet p ...

and graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

with Honours in 2008.

Career

Leslie worked for

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

narrating ''The British Slave Trade: Abolition, Parliament and People''. Her leading on screen debut came at age 21 in the television film ''New Town'' (2009), for which she won the

Scottish BAFTA BAFTA in Scotland is the Scottish branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Formed in 1986, the branch holds two annual awards ceremonies recognising the achievement by performers and production staff in Scottish film, televis ...

for Best Acting Performance – New Talent Award. In September and October 2010, she became the lead in Nell Leyshon's play ''Bedlam'' at the Globe Theatre. Based on the Bethlem Royal Hospital, representative of the worst excesses of asylums in the era of lunacy reform, Leslie portrayed May, a beautiful country girl driven mad by lost love. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

''s Charles Spencer praised her performance, commenting, "Leslie proves genuinely poignant." Her break-through role came as Gwen Dawson, a housemaid, in the first series (2010–11) of the ITV television drama ''

''. In 2011, while on ''Downton Abbey'', Leslie briefly appeared in two episodes of the British drama series ''

Case Histories ''Case Histories'' (2004) is a detective novel by British author Kate Atkinson and is set in Cambridge, England. It introduces Jackson Brodie, a former police inspector and now private investigator. The plot revolves around three seemingly unc ...

''.

In 2012, she was cast in seasons

two 2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultur ...

three 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...

and

four 4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures. In mathematics Four is the smallest c ...

of the popular HBO fantasy series '' Game of Thrones'' as the wildling

. ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

''s Rowan Kaiser stated: "As Ygritte, oseis both dangerous and flirtatious, and it's fun to watch." ''Den of Geek'''s David Crow exclaimed, "A complicated character ..Rose Leslie devours the screen." In 2013, ''Vox.com'''s Emily VanDerWerff (under ''

'') review for " The Climb" episode, "(In the books) Ygritte is a means to an end... (but) on screen, as embodied by Rose Leslie, she becomes something more," whilst ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

''s Christopher Orr summed up her portrayal in the 2014 episode " The Watchers of the Wall" by concluding: "Rose Leslie has been one of a handful of performers on the show who've really elevated their characters above what they were in the books." While on ''Game of Thrones'', Leslie appeared in the 2012 drama film ''

Now Is Good ''Now Is Good'' is a 2012 teen romantic drama film directed by Ol Parker. Based on Jenny Downham's 2007 novel ''Before I Die'', it was adapted by Parker, who had recently written the screenplay for '' The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel''. The film, ...

'' and in episodes of ITV detective television series '' Vera,''

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

conspiracy drama ''

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...

'' and

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

's comedy series ''

Blandings Blandings Castle is a recurring fictional location in the stories of British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, being the seat of Lord Emsworth (Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth), home to many of his family and the setting for numerous tal ...

''. From October to November 2014, she appeared in the four-part mini-series '' The Great Fire''. She then starred in the horror film '' Honeymoon''. She has since played DS Emma Lane in the BBC detective drama ''

Luther Luther may refer to: People * Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation * Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement * Luther (give ...

'' with positive response and starred in the 2015 action adventure/fantasy film ''

The Last Witch Hunter ''The Last Witch Hunter'' is a 2015 American fantasy action film directed by Breck Eisner and written by Cory Goodman, Matt Sazama, and Burk Sharpless. The film stars Vin Diesel as an immortal witch hunter who must stop a plague from ravaging ...

.'' She and

David Tennant David John Tennant (''né'' McDonald; born 18 April 1971) is a Scottish actor. He rose to fame for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor (2005–2010 and 2013) in the BBC science-fiction TV show ''Doctor Who'', reprising the rol ...

recorded an audiobook version of '' Carmilla'' in 2015. In 2016, she portrayed the character of Athena in '' Sticky Notes''. In 2016, Leslie was cast in ''

'', a

legal drama and spin off of ''

The Good Wife ''The Good Wife'' is an American legal and political drama television series that aired on CBS from September 22, 2009, to May 8, 2016. It focuses on Alicia Florrick, the wife of the Cook County State's Attorney, who returns to her career in l ...

''. She plays Maia Rindell, a young lawyer who just passed the

bar exam A bar examination is an examination administered by the bar association of a jurisdiction that a lawyer must pass in order to be admitted to the bar of that jurisdiction. Australia Administering bar exams is the responsibility of the bar associat ...

and whose family is involved in a financial scam, destroying her reputation. The first episode aired in February 2017. In July 2019, it was revealed that Leslie would not return for the show's fourth season. In 2017 Leslie provided the voice for the female protagonist "En" in the video game ''

Echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

'', a game by Copenhagen-based game developer Ultra Ultra. In October 2019 Leslie was cast as Louise Bourget in

Kenneth Branagh Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh (; born 10 December 1960) is a British actor and filmmaker. Branagh trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and has served as its president since 2015. He has won an Academy Award, four BAFTAs (plus ...

's adaptation of Agatha Christie's novel ''

Death on The Nile ''Death on the Nile'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 1 November 1937 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company the following year. The UK edition retailed at se ...

''. The film was released on 11 February 2022. In January 2020, Leslie joined the cast of BBC's and

World Productions World Productions is a British television production company, founded on 20 March 1990 by acclaimed producer Tony Garnett, and owned by ITV plc following a takeover in 2017. History The company's first major series was the police drama '' Betwe ...

's drama series ''

Vigil A vigil, from the Latin ''vigilia'' meaning ''wakefulness'' ( Greek: ''pannychis'', or ''agrypnia'' ), is a period of purposeful sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching, or an observance. The Italian word ''vigilia'' has become gener ...

'', which premiered in 2021. In February 2021, Leslie was cast in HBO's ''

The Time Traveler's Wife ''The Time Traveler's Wife'' is the debut novel by American author Audrey Niffenegger, published in 2003. It is a love story about Henry, a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably, and about Clare, his wife, an ...

'' TV series based on the novel by Audrey Niffenegger, starring as Clare Abshire alongside

Theo James Theo is a given name and a hypocorism. Greek origin Many names beginning with the root "Theo-" derive from the Ancient Greek word ''theos'' (''θεός''), which means god, for example: *Feminine names: Thea, Theodora, Theodosia, Theophania, ...

as Henry DeTamble.

Personal life

Leslie became fluent in French while living with her family in France during her pre-adolescent years. While working as an actress, she lived in Battersea, London, until moving to

north London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshire. The term ''nor ...

. She often refers to missing Aberdeen, saying "I feel very much at peace in Scotland." In 2011, Leslie began dating

Kit Harington Christopher Catesby Harington (born 26 December 1986) is an English actor who is widely known for his role as Jon Snow in the HBO epic fantasy television series ''Game of Thrones'' (2011–2019). After studying at the Royal Central School o ...

, who played her love interest, Jon Snow, in '' Game of Thrones''. They married on 23 June 2018. In September 2020, Leslie posed for a magazine photo shoot visibly pregnant. Their son was born in January 2021. In February 2023, Harington announced that they were expecting their second child. In July 2023, the couple confirmed the birth of their daughter. Leslie had been pregnant with her daughter whilst filming the second series of ''Vigil'', with her pregancy incorporated into her character's storyline.

Politics and other interests

Leslie supported Scotland remaining as part of the United Kingdom during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum campaign. At the

2015 UK general election The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Local ...

, she campaigned with the

Conservatives Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

in her local constituency of

Gordon Gordon may refer to: People * Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters * Gordon (surname), the surname * Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War * Clan Gordon, ...

. She sees herself as a

runner Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is ...

and enjoys rock climbing, cooking,

skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...

, archery, and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

. She is a patron of the charity Firefly International.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video game

Theatre

Awards and nominations

Notes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Leslie, Rose Living people 1987 births 21st-century Scottish actresses Actresses from Aberdeen Alumni of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art BAFTA winners (people) British people of Mexican descent

Rose A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

Scottish people of English descent Conservative Party (UK) people Scottish people of Hungarian descent People educated at Millfield Scottish film actresses Scottish radio actresses Scottish stage actresses Scottish television actresses Scottish video game actresses Scottish voice actresses Clan Fraser Weld family Grimston family