Victoria Hamilton has joined the cast of Unforgotten. A celebrated stage and screen actress, the 53-year-old has an extensive list of TV credits, including Pride & Prejudice (1995), Lark Rise to Candleford (2008-2011) and The Crown (2016-2017).
© GettyAway from work, Victoria is also a wife and mother, having met her husband – actor Mark Bazeley – while co-starring in a 2005 production of Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer. The duo, who got engaged on a beach in Greece, married in 2008, and have since welcomed two sons named Tam and Hal.
© ShutterstockAmong his equally impressive filmography, Mark has appeared in The Queen (2006) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).
"I got very, very lucky," Victoria said of her husband in 2015. "I was lucky that I met the man I wanted to marry and have children with at exactly the right time. I'd had lots of career already. And it's just a very solid thing in your life. If work goes great, it's fantastic. And if it doesn't, you've got your family. I'm hugely lucky. Do I sound really smug?"
© ShutterstockSpeaking about falling for an actor, Victoria mused: "When you're in a performance and the dynamics of the relationship are really working, it feels natural.
"So when you meet someone in an acting job and everything just clicks, you have to be aware of that danger. You need to spend time testing the relationship to see if it's really real, so it can work out. I think we probably both did that. When the job was over, there was a long period of, 'Is this actually real?'"
As fellow performers, Victoria and Mark are well aware of the highs and lows of the entertainment industry. "When neither of us is working, we just cry, drink a lot of wine, and really, really worry," she told The Guardian.
"It [expletive] me off so much. People get up to accept awards, and talk about acting, and say, 'We're all so spoilt.' No, we're not: 98% of actors are struggling to pay the rent or the mortgage, and wondering where the next part is coming from."
© GettySpeaking candidly, Victoria also noted that she's swapped the stage for the screen these days because it allows her to spend more time with her family.
"You expend a huge amount of energy in rehearsal, so you're a ghost in the evenings. And then during the run, you're not there on Saturdays, and you don't put your kids to bed," Victoria revealed to The Times. "It just has to be something very special for me. Theatre demands such a lot of you. You've got to do it as if your life depended on it, or not at all."
