Felicity Jones

Felicity Rose Hadley Jones, born on 17 October 1983, is an English actress who began acting as a child in productions such as The Treasure Seekers (1996) and the television series The Worst Witch (1998). Over her career, she has earned Academy Award nominations for her performances in the biopic The Theory of Everything (2014) and the period drama The Brutalist (2024). Jones is also widely recognized for portraying Jyn Erso in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in On the Basis of Sex (2018).

Jones was born in Birmingham and raised in Bournville. Her mother worked in advertising and her father was a journalist. Following her parents' separation when she was three, she lived with her mother and elder brother. Influenced by her uncle, actor Michael Hadley, Jones began acting at age 11 at Central Junior Television. After attending Kings Norton Girls' School and King Edward VI Handsworth School, she took a gap year to appear in the BBC series Servants. She then studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, appearing in student plays including a 2005 tour of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors in Japan.

In her early career, Jones played Ethel Hallow in Weirdsister College and voiced Emma Carter on the BBC Radio 4 soap opera The Archers until 2009. She landed television and stage roles in the 2007 ITV adaptation of Northanger Abbey, Polly Stenham's play That Face, and Enid Bagnold's The Chalk Garden at the Donmar Warehouse in 2008. Her early film credits include Brideshead Revisited (2008), Flashbacks of a Fool (2008), Cemetery Junction (2010), Soulboy (2010), and Julie Taymor's adaptation of The Tempest (2010).

Jones achieved critical recognition in 2011 for her performance as Anna in the romantic drama Like Crazy, winning a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. That year, she also starred in the comedy Chalet Girl and the play Luise Miller, and became the face of both Burberry and Dolce & Gabbana. She was later announced as a global brand ambassador for Clé de Peau Beauté in 2017.

Following roles in The Invisible Woman (2013) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Jones received widespread acclaim for playing Jane Wilde Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014). For her performance, she earned nominations for the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award, Critics' Choice Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. In 2016, she starred in the box-office success Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, as well as the thriller Inferno and the fantasy drama A Monster Calls.

Jones subsequently starred in the biopic On the Basis of Sex (2018), the adventure film The Aeronauts (2019), Netflix's The Midnight Sky (2020), The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021), and the thriller Dead Shot (2023). In 2024, her role as a Holocaust survivor in The Brutalist brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also starred in Train Dreams (2025). In her personal life, Jones married director Charles Guard in 2018, and they have two children.