Biography

Janie Dee won the Olivier, Evening Standard and Critics' Circle Awards for Best Actress for Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential (London/New York), and the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Performance in a Musical for Carousel, directed by Nicholas Hytner at the National Theatre.

Her Shakespearean roles include Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Countess of Roussillon in All’s Well That Ends Well (both Shakespeare’s Globe), Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing (The Peter Hall Company, Theatre Royal Bath), Olivia in Twelfth Night and Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, directed by Judi Dench (both Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park). She played Eileen Herlie/Gertrude in The Motive and the Cue with Mark Gatiss, directed by Sam Mendes (National Theatre), and Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra opposite Simon Paisley Day (Shakespeare’s Globe at the Barbican and The Hollywood Bowl). In 2023, Janie was invited to be The Globe’s ambassador at the 400th Anniversary of the ‘First Folio’ Celebration (Marbach, Germany).

Janie has enjoyed acclaimed artistic partnerships with playwrights Alan Ayckbourn and Harold Pinter, and director Peter Hall. Ayckbourn wrote the role of Jacie Triplethree in Comic Potential for her, for which she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress, an Evening Standard Award, and a Critics Circle Award in London, and an Obie Award and Theatre World Best Newcomer Award in New York. Other Ayckbourn credits include Woman in Mind and House/Garden (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Vaudeville Theatre). Her collaborations with Peter Hall include Harold Pinter’s Betrayal (Duchess Theatre/Tour), Old Times and Celebration, both on stage and on film opposite Colin Firth (Gate Dublin, Albery Theatre, Tour), as well as Noel Coward’s Design for Living and George Bernard Shaw’s The Apple Cart (both Theatre Royal Bath/Tour). Other Pinter credits include the double-bill Moonlight/Night School, part of The Jamie Lloyd Company’s Pinter at The Pinter Season (Harold Pinter Theatre).

Most recently, Janie played Laurence in The Truth (Apollo Theatre) opposite Stephen Mangan, Betty Dullfleet/ Defence/O'Casey/Bowl in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (RSC) with Mark Gatiss, and Julia Steroll in Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels (Menier Chocolate Factory). Other theatre highlights include Ruth in Blithe Spirit with Dame Angela Lansbury (Gielgud Theatre); the UK premieres of Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Theatre Royal Bath, Charing Cross Theatre) and Hand to God (Vaudeville Theatre), the title role in Linda (Manhattan Theatre Club), Arkadina in The Seagull (Open Air Theatre Regent’s Park), NSFW (Royal Court, Olivier Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress), Noises Off (Old Vic, Novello Theatre), Shadowlands opposite Charles Dance (Wyndham’s Theatre); Three Sisters and A Month in the Country (both Chichester Festival Theatre).

Janie’s many musical theatre credits include Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends (Gielgud Theatre), Phyllis Rogers Stone in Follies (National Theatre) earning her Olivier and WhatsOnStage Award nominations for Best Actress in a Musical, and the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical Performance, Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music (Palace Theatre, Buxton Opera House, Holland Park Opera), the London premiere of Putting It Together (St James Theatre), Fosca in Passion (The Cantiere Festival in Montepulciano, Italy), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in Concert (London Palladium), My One and Only (Chichester Festival Theatre, Piccadilly Theatre, Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical), Mack and Mabel opposite David Soul (Criterion Theatre), The King and I and Hello, Dolly! (both Curve Leicester), for which she won the UK Theatre Best Performance Award, and Carrie Pipperidge in Nicholas Hytner’s celebrated production of Carousel (National Theatre) for which she won an Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.

Film and Television credits include The Burning Girls with Samantha Morton and Rupert Graves (Paramount +), You & Me (ITVX), Chimerica and Crashing by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (both C4), Official Secrets with Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes and Matt Smith, P.D. James’s Death in Holy Orders & The Murder Room as Emma Lavenham opposite Martin Shaw as Adam Dalgleish, and Me and Orson Welles with Zak Efron, directed by Richard Linklater. Radio dramas include Bryan Friel’s Afterplay and BBC Radio 4’s series of Ian Fleming’s James Bond dramas as Moneypenny.
- IMDb mini biography by: M Jackson