Maxine Peake
Maxine Peake (born 14 July 1974) is an English stage, radio, film and television actress, playwright, producer, director and political activist, who made her name as Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies. She has since played Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, barrister Martha Costello in the BBC legal drama Silk and Grace Middleton in The Village. She is also an accomplished stage actress, having played the title role in Hamlet, and had a role in the 2014 film The Theory of Everything. In 2018 she played the lead in the film Funny Cow and had a starring role in Mike Leigh's epic Peterloo, a film very close to her heart.
121 acting credits · 2 directing credits
Acting · 121
The Graham Norton Show
2007
Black Mirror
2011
Star Wars: Visions
2021
The One Show
2006
Shameless
2004
Inside No. 9
2014
I Swear
2025
The Alan Titchmarsh Show
2007
Jonathan Creek
1997
Silk
2011
The Hollow Crown
2012
Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
1996
The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer
2018
Bait
2026
The Street
2006
Little Dorrit
2008
Timeshift
2002
ChuckleVision
1987
Say Nothing
2024
The Village
2013
Clocking Off
2000
Mandy
2020
Messiah
2001
Early Doors
2003
Criminal Justice
2008
The Theory of Everything
2014
Red Riding
2009
dinnerladies
1998
Wendell & Wild
2022
Three Girls
2017
The Devil's Whore
2008
Fairy Tales
2008
Anne
2022
Linda Green
2001
Sunburn
1999
Comedy Connections
2003
Alan Bennett's Talking Heads
2020
We Have Been Watching
2017
Room at the Top
2012
Rules of the Game
2022
The Bisexual
2018
Artsnight
2015
Art That Made Us
2022
All or Nothing
2002
Words of War
2025
The 50 Greatest Television Dramas
2007
Peterloo
2018
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
2009
Last Seen
2026
Private Peaceful
2012
The Falling
2015
A Midsummer Night's Dream
2016
Funny Cow
2018
Faith
2005
Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
2000
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
2010
Girls' Night
1998
Clubbed
2008
Dance First
2023
Fanny Lye Deliver'd
2019
First Day on Earth
—
Frozen
2005
Woken
2024
Svengali
2013
Best Laid Plans
2012
Dinnerladies Diaries
2018
Hamilton Mattress
2002
Secret Life of the Safari Park
2024
Keeping Up with the Joneses
2013
Keeping Rosy
2014
Edge
2010
Gwen
2018
Would Like To Meet
2007
Bunch of Kunst - A Film About Sleaford Mods
2017
Bike Squad
2008
Confessions of a Diary Secretary
2007
Run & Jump
2014
Strange Weather
2015
Unseen
2017
Twisting My Melon
—
Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough
2025
Hancock & Joan
2008
Christmas Lights
2004
Ceremony: The Return of Friedrich Engels
2018
Imaginary Friend
2010
Hamlet
2015
Wonders of the Moon
2018
Red Top
2016
The Heart Fails Without Warning
2013
Becoming Victoria Wood
2026
Choked Up
2023
The Haunted Season
2024
Tish
2023
I Am Bob
2007
Surfaces
2020
Be Still My Beating Heart
2019
See No Evil: The Moors Murders
2006
Art Matters
2024
Men Who Sleep in Cars
2017
DeafBlind
2011
Lapushka!
2022
Generation '66
2016
The Fear of Trilogy
2006
The Occupant of the Room
2025
The Last Testament of Lillian Bilocca
2018
The Real Anne: Unfinished Business
2022
Cake
2017
Judy
2019
Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry?
2025
The Priest
2017
Dispossession: The Great Social Housing Swindle
2017
Laundreams
2025
The Bright Side Running Club
—
The Madness of the Dance
2006
It's Me
2020
The Shuttleworths
2015
I Wish For You
2016
Inner Polar Bear
2022
Something Out of Nothing
2022
Where We Used to Meet
2021
The Great Mountain Sheep Gather
2020
