Zoe Telford is an English actress.

Telford was born inNorwich, England. She started training as a dancer at a very young age and continued until she was in her 20s.^[6] She attended theItalia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts.^[4] Her first break was on the showThe Bill, a police drama, in 1993.^[3]

After guesting inThe Bill, Telford appeared as a guest on several British TV shows before her first major role in the mini-seriesThe Last Train (1999). One of her first recognisable works was in the first season ofChannel 4'sTeachers (2001) in which she played Maggie, a police officer and girlfriend to the character Simon Casey, played byAndrew Lincoln.

In the TV movieMen Only (2001), she played Alice, a nurse who was gang-raped by a group of men known to her and with whom she had flirted, played by, among others,Stephen Moyer andMartin Freeman.^[7] She played the social worker Christina Leith inReal Men (2003), a two part TV drama that tackled the subject of paedophilia.^[8] Telford appeared asEva Braun in the 2003 Emmy-nominatedHitler: The Rise of Evil oppositeRobert Carlyle. The TV movie was broadcast in the US onCBS with some controversy as it reportedly "likened the nation's acceptance of the Bush administration's pre-emptive strike on Iraq to the climate of fear that allowed Hitler to prosper".^[9] Her screen time was short since the film focused more on the events leading up to theFinal Solution.^[9]

InAgatha Christie's Poirot'sDeath on the Nile (2004), Telford played Rosalie Otterbourne, one of the cruise passengers alongsideEmily Blunt,James Fox, andDavid Suchet. She played Alison Jackman, a young trainee at the fictional PR firm of Prentiss McCabe headed byStephen Fry in theBBC'sAbsolute Power (2003–2005), and trauma doctor Jane Cameron inThe Golden Hour (2005), a four partITV miniseries.

In 2006 Telford played Emily Trefusis inAgatha Christie's Marple'sThe Sittaford Mystery, produced jointly byGranada andWGBH-Boston. The show was broadcast in the US as part of thePBSMystery! anthology series and marked her first collaboration withLaurence Fox. She was also in three different movies in the same year:Beau Brummell: This Charming Man,The Painted Veil (starringNaomi Watts), andThe Truth (starringElizabeth McGovern). She played Abigail Thomas, Assistant Private Secretary to the Sovereign, in the eight episode ITV seriesThe Palace (2008). The show was originally conceived as an answer toThe West Wing but underwent several script changes and, according to Telford, "became a very different thing to what it originally started out as".^[10] In 2008 she worked for the first time withJuliet Stevenson in the three part ITV seriesPlace of Execution; the show was broadcast in the US in the following year as part of the PBSMystery! anthology.

In 2009 Telford appeared in several otherprocedural dramas includingLaw & Order: UK (2009), the second season ofCriminal Justice (2009) where she played the defence barrister forMaxine Peake’s character Julie, andCollision (2009) which was broadcast in the US under thePBSMasterpiece Contemporary. In the same year she appeared as a freelance tabloid reporter in two episodes of the comedy seriesThe Thick of It (2009). In 2010 she appeared inFoyle's War (2010), shown in the US under the PBSMystery! series. She also appeared in Episodes 2 and 3 of the first season of the BBC'sSherlock (2010) as Sarah, a physician colleague and love interest ofDr. John Watson, played by herMen Only co-star Martin Freeman.^[11] Telford's appearance as Freya Carlisle inLewis (2011) reunited her with Juliet Stevenson and Laurence Fox; while her appearance as Eva Storr in the BBC'sRoom at the Top (2012) reunited her with herCriminal Justice co-star Maxine Peake. She played the newly created character Claire Sutton, a policy adviser, in the 2013 remake ofYes, Prime Minister.^[12]

Telford won a Special Commendation Award for her role in the filmGreyhawk at the 2014Edinburgh International Film Festival, where the film premiered. She plays Paula, a beleaguered housewife who helps Mal, a blind veteran, find his dog.^[5]

She appeared in the Series 18 opening episodes ofSilent Witness (2015) as DCI Jane de Freitas. Her role as Bella Cross, the daughter of one of the main suspects in the first season ofUnforgotten (2015), reunited her withNicola Walker, her former co-star inThe Last Train. She played the tragicClara Haber in the first season ofNational Geographic'sGenius – Einstein (2017). She appeared in other British TV series includingDeath in Paradise (2018) as Michelle Devaux, a professional poker player, andGrantchester (2019) as Professor Jean Simms, Head of the Computing Department at theUniversity of Cambridge, set in the 1950s. She played Sarah Bradford, the missing wife of DI David Bradford in the TV seriesLondon Kills (2019), produced byAcorn TV and acquired by the BBC for 2020 release in the UK.^[13]

Telford has a son (b. 2011) and a daughter (b. 2013). She lives in Oxfordshire.^[3]

• Zoe Telford atIMDb

• Living people
• English television actresses
• Actresses from Norwich
• 20th-century English actresses
• 21st-century English actresses
• Alumni of the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts
• 1973 births

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