Biography

Sarah Preston is a RADA-trained British actress known for playing intelligent, grounded women with authority, emotional complexity and quiet steel.

She was an original series regular in the BBC drama Holby City (1999), playing straight-talking Ward Sister Karen Newburn, whose tempestuous relationship with ex-husband Nick Jordan became a major storyline across the show's first two series. Her television work also includes EastEnders (1985), In Deep (2001), Steel River Blues (2004), Extras (2005), Vera (2011), The Last Detective (2003), Where the Heart Is (1997) and Doctors (2000).

More recently, Sarah appeared in the short film Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre (2025), winner of Best Comedy at the 2025 Ealing Film Festival.

Originally from the North East of England, Sarah began acting on stage at the age of five before moving to London to train for three years at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. While at RADA she developed an unexpected aptitude for stage fighting, winning the John Barton Prize, and later worked as both an actress and fight double on the feature film The House of Angelo (2000).

Whether playing the woman holding everything together, the professional who commands the room, or someone considerably more dangerous, Sarah is particularly drawn to characters with strength on the surface and something more complicated underneath.
- IMDb mini biography by: Sarah Preston