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Sophie Winkleman (born 5 August 1981) is an English actress.

Winkleman is best known for her role as Big Suze, the on/off girlfriend of Jeremy (Robert Webb) in the offbeat Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show. She is also known for her starring role as one of the main characters, Princess Eleanor in the British TV drama The Palace. She is the half-sister of TV presenter Claudia Winkleman. On St Valentine`s day 2009, she became engaged to Lord Frederick Windsor, son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent,[1] and would become the first Jewish member of the British Royal Family.

Education

Sophie was educated at the University of Cambridge, where she read English literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. She toured Britain for four months in 2001 with the university`s famed dramatic society Cambridge Footlights in Far Too Happy, a comic revue she co-wrote and performed in. For the first time in twenty years, the Footlights received a Perrier award nomination. Sophie is also a member of the National Youth Theatre.

[edit] Television work

Aside from Peep Show, Winkleman`s other TV credits include lead roles in the Warner Bros show Chasing Alice, the Fox series Keen Eddie, ITV police dramas Lewis and Poirot and Waking the Dead, (2002: Episode - Thin Air), the television adaptation of Zadie Smith`s White Teeth and the 2007 More4 political satire The Trial of Tony Blair. Sophie also appeared in several sketches in BBC One sketch series Ruddy Hell! It`s Harry and Paul (2007), with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. She also wrote and performed in their 2008 series `Harry and Paul`. She will soon be seen in Channel 4`s new comedy `Plus One`.

Sophie also filmed the lead role of Princess Eleanor in Company Pictures` eight-part television series The Palace, which was broadcast on ITV from January–March 2008. In August 2008, she filmed the leading guest role in the first episode of Kingdom`s third series, due to be broadcast in 2009. She is now filming `Robin Hood` in Budapest.[3]

[edit] Stage career

Winkleman`s stage career includes a spell at the Royal Shakespeare Company where she played Veronique in Laurence Boswell`s adaptation of Beauty and the Beast and a summer in Bath with the Peter Hall Company playing a variety of roles including Archangela in Gallileo`s Daughter, a new play by Timberlake Wertenbeker, Violet in George Bernard Shaw`s Man and Superman and Charlotte in Don Juan directed by Thea Sharrock. Her numerous roles whilst at Cambridge include the Bride in Lorca`s `Blood Wedding` which toured the amphitheatres of Greece, Abigail in Arthur Miller`s `The Crucible`, Dockdaisy in Bertolt Brecht`s `The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui` and Kate in Alan Ayckbourne`s `Confusions.`

[edit] Film appearances

Shattered,[4] directed by Rick Larkin, premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2007, in which Winkleman played the lead role of Rachel. She also played the lead role in "Love Live Long"[5] written and directed by Mike Figgis. Set amid the Gumball Rally car race, Winkleman portrays a fragile girl toying with suicide.[citation needed] Winkleman also played the comic role of Debbie Levine in Pathe`s romantic comedy Suzie Gold. She also appeared as the older Susan in the Disney film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Other film roles include the leads in the shorts `Seared` and `The Lost Domain`, a cinematic take on Alan-Fournier`s `Le Grand Meaulnes`..

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