Fine-featured English actress Hayley Atwell was born in London on April 5, 1982. Her parents divorced when she was 2, and she was raised by her mother but has dual citizenship in the United States and Great Britain thanks to her father, a practicing shaman who is part American Indian.

Just two years after Atwell wrapped up her studies at the Guidhall School of Music and Drama, Woody Allen cast her as the central love interest in his brooding black comedy Cassandra's Dream (2007) opposite Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor. The following year, she turned critics' heads in The Duchess and starred in director Julian Jarrold's big-screen remake of Brideshead Revisited.

In 2010, Atwell garnered her first Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of a beautiful noblewoman in the Starz miniseries "The Pillars of the Earth."