Jo Hartley

Joanne Victoria Hartley (born 12 March 1972) is an English actress born in Oldham, Lancashire who has appeared in the films The Young Victoria, Eddie the Eagle, Slaughterhouse Rulez and Torvill & Dean and in British television series This is England, Not Safe For Work, After Life, Bliss, and In My Skin. Hartley was brought up in a working-class family, attending North Chadderton School in Chadderton, in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England. She started acting at the age of 11 in her school production of The Sound of Music as Gretel Von Trappe. She then joined Oldham Theatre Workshop, developing her acting skills until the age of 17, when she stopped acting to work at British Aerospace (BAe) on a Youth Training Scheme where she worked as a secretary in the office for two years until leaving BAe to join Japan Airlines as a flight attendant. In her mid-twenties, Hartley left the aviation industry to pursue a career as an actor. Hartley returned to England, in London studying at the Questors Theatre in Ealing, where she studied method acting and Stanislavski's system until landing her first film role in the 2004 Shane Meadows directed Crime Drama Thriller film Dead Man's Shoes as 'Marie'.