Natalie Dormer

Six months after graduating from Webber Douglas, Dormer won the role of Victoria in Casanova.[2] This was her film debut and it was released in 2005. The director, Lasse Hallström, was so impressed with Dormer's comedic timing that he had the scriptwriter expand her part.[2] In 2005, Dormer had a small part in Distant Shores. After the filming of Casanova, Dormer was out of work for ten months, which she ascribes to "bad representation". She was attached to an independent film which kept being delayed because of financial problems. Taken off the audition circuit, Dormer waitressed and worked in data entry to support herself.[2][9] She has said that her being out of work for so long "was the best lesson I could have had in the first 12 months of my career".[7]

In 2007 and 2008, Dormer played Anne Boleyn in the first two seasons of The Tudors, for which she received highly positive reviews. Robert Abele of LA Weekly wrote: "Natalie Dormer presents a painterly exquisiteness and complexity in her portrayal of Anne Boleyn... her enigmatic, time-halting loveliness is a boon for The Tudors, and damn near worth losing your head over".[10] After her character's death at the end of the second season, The Boston Herald noted: "Dormer gave Anne Boleyn life, making her not just a beautiful schemer but a rebellious, defiantly independent tragic hero in the tradition of Rebel Without a Cause and Cool Hand Luke... her departure from The Tudors leaves a tremendous void."[11]

In 2008, Dormer played Moira Nicholson in Agatha Christie's Marple: "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" and appeared in the film City of Life. Dormer's Marple appearance aired in the US in the summer of 2009 as part of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery anthology series. Also in that year, she appeared in Incendiary, but her scenes were cut from the final film.

Following Marple, Dormer went on to film some new roles, including the Duchess of York in Madonna's film W.E., Pvt. Lorraine in Captain America: The First Avenger, and Niamh Cranitch in the BBC court drama Silk. She returned to The Tudors as Anne Boleyn in a dream sequence for the fourth and final season in mid-2010.[12]

From 2012 until 2016 Dormer played Margaery Tyrell in the HBO fantasy TV series Game of Thrones.[13][14] Dormer, along with the rest of the ensemble cast, was nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series in 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016, respectively, and the cast was awarded the Empire Hero Award in 2015 by the British film magazine Empire. For her performance in the third season of the show, Dormer won the Ewwy Award for Best Supporting Actress - Drama.[15]

In March 2013, she played the Lady Door in the radio play of Neverwhere, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. Later that year, she appeared in the car racing drama Rush and the thriller The Counselor. She also appeared in A Long Way From Home. In 2013, Dormer played Irene Adler in the final three episodes of the first season of the CBS series Elementary; she reprised the role in the second season.[16] Dormer played Cressida in the films The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2.[17] In preparation for the role, she shaved the left side of her head.[18]

In November 2014, it was announced that Dormer was to star as the scandalous 18th-century noblewoman Lady Worsley in a BBC drama called The Scandalous Lady W, based on the book Lady Worsley's Whim by the historian Hallie Rubenhold; it aired in August 2015.[19][20][21] In August 2016, Dormer was cast in The Professor and the Madman alongside Mel Gibson and Sean Penn.[22]

Dormer starred in the Lava Bear Films/David S. Goyer-produced horror film The Forest,[23] directed by multiple award-winning music video and short-film director Jason Zada, as his feature film debut.[24] Focus Features has the North American distribution rights to the film, which was released in January 2016.[25][26]

In September 2014, Deadline Hollywood announced that Dormer has been cast in Screen Gems' action thriller Patient Zero, alongside Matt Smith and Game of Thrones co-star John Bradley-West. The film was directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky and based on a script by Mike Le.[27] Patient Zero was released through video on demand on 14 August 2018, before receiving a limited theatrical release on 14 September 2018, by Vertical Entertainment.[28] In February 2017, it was announced that Dormer was cast as schoolteacher Mrs Hester Appleyard in Picnic at Hanging Rock, an adaptation of the 1967 Australian novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay. The 6 episode feature aired on Amazon Prime[29] and on BBC2 in the United Kingdom.[30] Dormer's performance was described as "commanding"[31] and "delicious".[32]

In May 2018, Dormer starred as a blind pianist in revenge thriller In Darkness which she also co-wrote.[33]

Following her previous audio work on Neverwhere, in August 2018 it was announced that Dormer would narrate the audiobook for Pottermore Publishing’s Harry Potter: A History of Magic. Of the role, Dormer commented that she had "always adored the Harry Potter books" and it was "fun to join the wizarding world family".[34]

Dormer will play Vivien Leigh in miniseries Vivling. The series will focus on Leigh's classic films, including Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire, and Dormer will also develop and produce the show.[35] Vivling will be Dormer’s first series of a first-look production deal with Fremantle which was announced in November 2018.[36]

In 2019, she was the voice of Onica in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.

March 2010 saw Dormer make her stage debut at the Young Vic theatre in London as Mizi in the play Sweet Nothings. In The Observer, theatre critic Susannah Clapp praised the performances of the cast and wrote: "Natalie Dormer is lissome as a dirty, delightful gadabout, pushing aside an entire chess game in order to put down her hat".[37] She then went on to her next stage role of Pat in .45 at Hampstead Theatre in November 2010.[38]

In March 2012, Dormer was back on the stage at the Young Vic to play the title role in After Miss Julie by Patrick Marber.[39] Her performance received critical acclaim, with reviews describing her as "little short of sensational",[40] "outstanding",[41] and "the perfect Miss Julie".[42] The online theatre magazine Exeunt wrote that her portrayal of Miss Julie contained "all the anger, desire, wit, loneliness, merriment, melancholy and desperation of the casts of several plays together... Dormer has still more presence and eerie beauty than is apparent from her appearances on-screen, and she shape-shifts almost supernaturally between seductress, child, and tormentor."[43]

Dormer returned to the stage at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in October 2017 for the lead role in David Ives' Venus in Fur. The Telegraph described her performance as "sensational"[44] while Lyn Gardner wrote that Dormer was "dominant in every way".[45]