Marisa Abela

Marisa Gabrielle Abela is a British actress known for her work across television, film, and audio productions. She gained prominent recognition for her starring role as Yasmin Kara-Hanani in the BBC Two and HBO drama series Industry, as well as for portraying singer Amy Winehouse in the biographical feature film Back to Black. Over the course of her career, she has received critical acclaim and major award recognitions.

Abela was born on 7 December 1996 in Brighton to actress Caroline Gruber and director Angelo Abela. Raised in Rottingdean with her older brother Jack, her background includes Maltese Libyan descent from her father and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry from her mother. Her parents divorced when she was four years old. Abela attended Roedean School on a drama scholarship, took drama classes with the Theatre Workshop, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), graduating in 2019.

She made her early acting debut at eleven years old playing the character Alice in the thriller film Man in a Box (2008). After graduating from RADA, Abela made her television debut in 2020 with a main role as Ellie Sutherland in the Sky One political thriller COBRA. Later that year, she began starring in Industry, earning high praise for her performance in its third season, where critics cited her as a standout performer. For her work in the series, she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress.

In film, Abela appeared in She Is Love (2022) and Rogue Agent (2022), followed by a minor supporting role as Teen Talk Barbie in Greta Gerwig's Barbie (2023). She subsequently starred as Amy Winehouse in the Sam Taylor-Johnson biopic Back to Black (2024), earning positive notices from critics for her physical portrayal of the singer. She was later cast in Steven Soderbergh's 2025 spy drama Black Bag alongside Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett.

Abela's other projects include voicing and portraying Elizabeth Bennet in an Audible adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, acting alongside Harris Dickinson, Will Poulter, Jessie Buckley, Toheeb Jimoh, and Glenn Close. Her industry honors include being named a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2023 and receiving a nomination for the BAFTA Rising Star Award in 2025.

In her personal life, Abela was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2020, undergoing an eight-hour operation to remove the tumor followed by radioiodine therapy. In July 2024, she became engaged to actor Jamie Bogyo, whom she met while studying at RADA. The couple married in September 2025.