Tuppence Middleton

Tuppence Middleton (born 21 February 1987 in Bristol) is an English actress. She was nominated for the London Evening Standard Film Awards 2010 for Most Promising Newcomer. Since 2015, she portrays Riley Blue in the Netflix webseries Sense8. She also attended Stagecoach, a performing arts school in Portishead. She appeared in local drama productions, including a pantomime at the Princes Hall, Clevedon, with her sister. She has appeared in feature films such as Tormented (2009), Chatroom (2010), Cleanskin (2012), Trance (2013), The Lady Vanishes (2013), The Imitation Game (2014), and Jupiter Ascending (2015), as well as in television series such as Bones (2008), New Tricks (2010), Friday Night Dinner (2011), Sinbad (2012), Spies of Warsaw (2013), and Black Mirror (2013). Her character, head girl Justine Fielding, dates one of the most popular boys in school, only to find that he and his friends were responsible for a classmate's death. She has also appeared in adverts for the chewing gum Extra and Sky TV. She starred in two British period dramas screened around the same time, Dickensian (2015–16), playing Miss Havisham, and War & Peace (2016), in which she played Russian princess and villain Hélène Kuragina.

She starred in the 2016 BBC drama War & Peace, playing Russian aristocrat Princess Hélène Kuragina. The series received critical acclaim and featured fellow young actress Lily James also known for her period dramas. The Daily Express said: "Rising star Tuppence Middleton takes on the role of the delightfully evil Hélène Kuragina, who is one half of the incestuous duo. Audiences witnessed her brother getting a little too intimate with his sibling in the first episode before she turned her attentions to Pierre and dug her claws into him. She is a vile character who will use and abuse Pierre without giving him a second thought, to stop the beautiful Natasha (Lily James) Pierre real love marrying him." She has in interviews described herself as shy. "I liked to be in my own company, so when I came home from school, I'd just go up to my room and hang out by myself. I wouldn't really have friends over or go to see friends much. I was very, very shy in public and school, and quite loud and brash at home. As I got older, I auditioned for drama school and shocked myself by getting in."