Lara Pulver


Lara Pulver is an English actress, who won the 2016 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical in the West End's revival of Gypsy.
Her screen credits include True Blood, Sherlock, Da Vinci's Demons, Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, Spooks, Underworld: Blood Wars, The Alienist: Angel of Darkness, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, Dota: Dragon's Blood, The Split, Maternal, Blood of Zeus, and MobLand.

Early life and education

Pulver was born in the town of Leigh-on-Sea in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, on 1 September 1980 and grew up in a village near Sevenoaks, Kent. Her father is from a Jewish family; her mother converted to Judaism when they married. She has a sister, Erika, who is four years older and works as a teacher.
Pulver attended the National Youth Music Theatre between 1994 and 1998, as well as The Liz Burville Dance Centre, Bexley. In 1997, she began studying at the Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts, and graduated in 2000.

Career

Pulver was nominated for the 2008 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the role of Lucille Frank in the first West End production of the musical Parade at the Donmar Warehouse. She reprised the role in the Los Angeles production at the Mark Taper Forum opposite T.R. Knight.
In 2008, Pulver recorded a song for the CD Act One – Songs from the Musicals of Alexander S. Bermange. Pulver joined the cast of the BBC's Robin Hood in 2009 as Isabella, the sister of Guy of Gisbourne.
In 2010, Pulver joined the cast of the third series of HBO's True Blood as Sookie Stackhouse's fairy godmother, Claudine Crane.
Pulver played Erin Watts, the new chief of Section D, in the tenth and final series of BBC spy drama Spooks, a role she reprised in the 2015 feature film Spooks: The Greater Good
Pulver played Irene Adler in "A Scandal in Belgravia", the first episode of the second series of Sherlock. Her appearance caused an "enormous" response, with the Evening Standard calling the scene where she greets Sherlock Holmes nude "infamous". To The Telegraph, Pulver called the scene "empowering". The BBC received over 100 complaints about the footage. The episode was the most-watched programme on BBC iPlayer from January to April 2012.
In 2012, she joined the cast of Da Vinci's Demons as the "seductive and minded" Clarice Orsini, a series regular and wife of Elliot Cowan's character Lorenzo Medici.
In 2014, she played Louise in a revival of Gypsy at the Chichester Festival Theatre. The production transferred to the West End in April 2015. Pulver won the 2016 Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical for the same role in the Savoy Theatre production of Gypsy. Louise is actually the title role, as "Louise" becomes the real-life early-20th-century American strip-tease sensation Gypsy Rose Lee, on whose memoirs the musical is based. Pulver's co-star in the Savoy production, Imelda Staunton, won the 2016 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as the larger-than-life Mama Rose.
In 2025, Pulver starred in the Guy Ritchie directed Paramount+ British crime drama television series MobLand, in a cast which included Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Paddy Considine, Joanne Froggatt, Helen Mirren and Geoff Bell.

Personal life

In 2003, Pulver met American actor Josh Dallas while he was in the UK studying at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. They married in December 2007 in Devon. In an interview on 2 December 2011, Dallas stated they had divorced.
Pulver began dating fellow Spooks actor Raza Jaffrey in 2012 and married on 27 December 2014. The couple have two children.

Acting credits

Film

Television

Stage

Television

Theatre