Maxine Peake
Biography
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.
Known For
Top 40 Movies
I Swear
2025
The Theory of Everything
2014
Quiet on Set: The Class Division in the Film Industry?
2025
The Priest
2017
Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings
2000
Irvine Welsh: Reality Is Not Enough
2025
Best Laid Plans
2012
Keeping Up with the Joneses
2013
The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister
2010
Private Peaceful
2012
Edge
2010
Dance First
2023
The Falling
2015
Funny Cow
2018
Ceremony: The Return of Friedrich Engels
2018
Men Who Sleep in Cars
2017
The Fear of Trilogy
2006
Wendell & Wild
2022
Words of War
2025
Fanny Lye Deliver'd
2019
Hamilton Mattress
2002
Keeping Rosy
2014
Peterloo
2018
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
2009
All or Nothing
2002
The 50 Greatest Television Dramas
2007
Generation '66
2016
Cake
2017
Svengali
2013
Lapushka!
2022
Bike Squad
2008
A Midsummer Night's Dream
2016
Woken
2024
Frozen
2005
Clubbed
2008
Hamlet
2015