Leanne Best was born on the 15th of June 1979, the daughter of Leigh and Roag Best,the niece of former Beatle, Pete Best and is the eldest of four children, including her identical twin sister, Sarah. She trained at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts but never really wanted to be an actress. She had done some performing at college and was working in a cafe when she auditioned for a summer school at LIPA after her mum had cut an advert out of the local paper. She went along to a summer school open call to have 6 weeks working on Arthur Miller and Shakespeare but even though the acting wasn't really the most interesting part of it for her at the time, she fell in love with it pretty quickly. Playing Abigail in 'The Crucible' she was awed by the experience and at the end of the course, the teacher suggested she should go to drama school, and they gave her an audition for their acting course and she got a place. The guy who ran the course encouraged her to apply to LIPA and she was accepted. On graduation she somewhat reluctantly left her home city for London where "there was a lot of waitressing and shop work" before making her television debut in 'Casualty' (2004).
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| In Ripper Street |
Since then she has appeared in numerous small screen roles, but notably as Victorian campaigner Jane Cobden in 10 episodes of the period thriller 'Ripper Street' (2013-14) followed by 'Fortitude' (2015) and then could be seen in three roles almost simultaneously as wartime school teacher Teresa in 'Home Fires' (2015-16), and two different police officers in 'Line Of Duty' (2016) and 'Undercover' (2016). Leanne's next big role was playing Tina Reynolds in 15 episodes of a show that her mum and a whole posse of Liverpudlian aunties used to cancel their Sunday nights to watch, 'Cold Feet' (2016-17). This was followed by 'Tin Star' (2017-20), 'Carnival Row' (2019), 'Close To Me' (2021), 'Young Wallander' (2020-22), 'Four Lives' (2022), 'Compulsion' (2022) and 'The Walk In' (2022). Along with Timothy Spall she starred in 'Bolan's Shoes' (2023), about childhood friends obsessed with 1970s singer Marc Bolan in Liverpool and in the same year was in the psychological thriller 'Raging Grace'. It was a busy time the following year as she appeared in 5 episodes of 'G'wed' (2024), 6 episodes of 'The Bay' (2024) and 6 episodes of 'Insomnia' (2024).
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| Leanne and Con O’Neill in 'Educating Rita' |
Leanne has also made many stage appearances, principally in her native Liverpool at the Playhouse and Everyman Theatres, playing such varied roles as Lady Macbeth, Stella in 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and Rita in 'Educating Rita' and was was nominated for the TMA Award for Best Performance for 'The Matchbox' at Liverpool Everyman. On the big screen she had the title role in the supernatural horror film directed by Tom Harper, 'The Woman in Black2:Angel of Death (2014) as well as being part of the fighting force in 'Star Wars:Episode V11 - The Force Awakens (2015). Other film credits include 'The Be All and End All' (2009), 'Native' (2016) 'The Infiltrator' (2016), 'Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool' (2017) and 'Little Joe' (2019). Liverpool's Willy Russell, the writer of the iconic play 'Educating Rita', was highly complimentary of Leanne and Con O’Neill. "The electricity between them is sensational," he says, and then, reminiscently, adds, "the two of them remind me of Julie Walters and Mark Kingston (who originated the roles of Rita and Frank onstage)."
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/10/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-mark.html
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