Biography

Julia Louis-Dreyfus offered her a recurring guest part on Veep (2012), as she is a big fan of Phillips' sketch show Smack the Pony (1999).

Sally has a 1st class degree in Italian from Oxford University.

Her three favorite parts are Tash in Clatterford (2006), the Finnish PM in Veep (2012) and Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016).

In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

As a child she traveled the world, because her dad worked for British Airways.

[on working in America] What attracts me about over there is that TV drama and TV comedy is the best in the world, but it seems like a very brutalising process. Every spring there are these planes full of British actors - it's like sardine-tins full of British hope - and they all go and sit on beaches and think it's fantastic for a couple of weeks and then get fantastically depressed and go on juice diets and come back two stone lighter and talking nonsense. (2013)

[on the rumored 2012 shoot for Bridget Jones's Baby (2016)]: It was due to shoot in August, then I was told it was delayed till September, then I was told it was delayed till October and I was having a baby at the end of October, so I was nervous, and then they said don't worry it's starting in November and I was like still, for me that was worse because either I'm going to be 9 months pregnant, or I'm just going to be fat. Either of those are bad, and then it was postponed till January, and then we had a call saying it was postponed indefinitely.

[on co-star Renée Zellweger] We got on very well. We were in touch for a bit but we were quite honest about it - she's a massive movie star in LA and I was pregnant with Ollie on the second film. When I had Ollie we talked a lot and she was incredibly kind when he was born, but you know, you're just aware when that happens that your life is going to take a slightly different path.

I'm a patron of the Skylarks charity in Richmond [south-west London], and we are now meeting lots of needs that were previously met by the state. People with disabilities fared much worse under austerity during the pandemic. So it's difficult. We know how to look after people; we know how to give people equal opportunity in life; but we're heading into bleak economic times, and people with disabilities are always the first to suffer.

All children change your life profoundly, but I do feel that that I'm interacting with parenting as a plough interacts with a field. It has knocked off some of my edges - but they were edges that needed to come off. I had a very privileged upbringing. My dad worked for British Airways so I was brought up overseas and got to see all kinds of different things. I went to Oxford... you're allowed to work in comedy if you went to Oxford or Cambridge. It welcomes all types!