Honeysuckle Weeks

This article is about the British actress. For the album of the same name, see Honeysuckle Weeks (album).

Honeysuckle Weeks (born 1 August 1979) is a British actress known for her starring role as Samantha Stewart in the British TV series Foyle's War beginning in 2002.

Honeysuckle Weeks
Honeysuckle Weeks, November 2008
Born	(1979-08-01) 1 August 1979 Cardiff, Glamorgan, Wales, UK
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1993–present
Spouse(s)	Lorne Stormonth-Darling (2007–present; 1 child)

Early life

Weeks was born in Cardiff, Wales,^[1][2] to Robin and Susan (née Wade) Weeks (who have since divorced),^[3] and grew up in Chichester and Petworth. Her parents named her after honeysuckle flowers because they were in bloom when she was born. She has a younger sister Perdita and brother Rollo, both of whom have also pursued careers in acting.

Weeks was educated at Great Ballard School,^[4] Sussex, Roedean School and Pembroke College, Oxford, where she read English (graduating with upper-second class honours).^[5] She also spent time studying art in Italy. As a child she was a member of the Chichester Festival Theatre. From the age of nine, Weeks studied at the Sylvia Young Theatre School at the weekends. ^{[citation needed]}

Aged 11, Weeks was flown to the United States and cast in a DreamWorks feature being directed by Steven Spielberg. However, when Spielberg dropped out of the project, Weeks' role was re-cast with Reese Witherspoon.^[6]

Career

Television

Her acting career started with the juvenile lead in a television series (an adaptation of Anne Fine's Goggle-Eyes, 1993, alongside Perdita); since then she has appeared in many programmes, including the children's series The Wild House and the long-running series Midsomer Murders and Poirot. In 1997 Honeysuckle and Perdita were both in Catherine Cookson's The Rag Nymph, wherein Perdita played the younger version of her sister's character. Her film roles include Anne Ridd in Lorna Doone (2000) and Sarah in My Brother Tom (2001). She starred in The Bill in 2008 as Julie Jankowski. ^{[citation needed]}

She is currently best known for her parts in three television series: Close Relations (1998), Ladies & Their Gentlemen (2002–2006), and Foyle's War (2002–2010, 2013). In the last, a BAFTA Award–winning detective series set in Hastings during and just after World War II, she starred opposite Michael Kitchen. In 2007, Weeks starred in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries as Tania Thompson, a character based on the Canadian serial killer Karla Homolka. In 2008, she appeared as Harriet Pringle in the Radio 4 adaptation of Fortunes of War. In 2012, she played a small part as Mrs Beeton in an episode of the BBC educational programme The Charles Dickens Show.^[7]

Stage acting

In early 2010, she appeared as "Sarah Prentice" in a production of the Agatha Christie play A Daughter's A Daughter at London's Trafalgar Studios.^[8] Later that year, Weeks appeared as Eliza Doolittle in a production of Pygmalion at the Chichester Festival Theatre in West Sussex.

She starred in the UK premiere of Melanie Marnich's play These Shining Lives from 8 May to 9 June 2013.^[9]

Personal life

She was engaged to the poet and musician Anno Birkin for a short period before his death, aged 20, in a car crash in Italy in 2001. In July 2007 she married hypnotherapist Lorne Stormonth-Darling.^[3] They live in London. They had earlier been married in an impromptu Buddhist wedding ceremony while on holiday in the Himalayas in 2005, followed by a London wedding two years later.^[10] The couple have one child, Wade born in 2011.^[10]

Awards and nominations

In 2004, Weeks was nominated in the Most Popular Newcomer category at the National Television Awards.

References

External links

• Honeysuckle Weeks at the Internet Movie Database
• "Honeysuckle Weeks in Foyle's War"