Few British actors can move from a Regency drawing room to a Greek island gunfight to a convent in the same two years. Keeley Hawes can — and in 2025 and 2026 she did exactly that.
From Spooks and Ashes to Ashes to Line of Duty, The Durrells and Bodyguard, Hawes has been a fixture of British television for more than two decades. Searches for her name are rarely just about one show, though. People want to know how old she is, whether she is married, how many children she has, and — most of all in 2026 — what she is in now.
This profile answers those questions from the public record and brings her story up to date with Miss Austen, The Assassin and Falling.
Keeley Hawes at a Glance
- Full name: Clare Julia Hawes, known professionally as Keeley Hawes
- Born: 10 February 1976 in London, England
- Age: 50 years old as of October 2026
- Known for: Spooks, Ashes to Ashes, Line of Duty, The Durrells, Bodyguard, It’s a Sin
- Latest roles: Cassandra Austen in Miss Austen (2025), Julie Green in The Assassin (2025), Anna in Falling (2026)
- Husband: Actor Matthew Macfadyen — married since 2004
- Children: Three — a son from her first marriage, and a daughter and son with Matthew Macfadyen
- Charity work: UNICEF UK Ambassador
Early Life and Career Beginnings
Keeley Hawes was born on 10 February 1976 and grew up in a council flat in Marylebone, central London. She is the youngest of four children. Hers was not an acting family — her father was a London black-cab driver, who she has joked would spread the word about her programmes to his passengers.
Her route into acting was partly geography. She loved primary school plays, and the Sylvia Young Theatre School moved in near her home when she was nine. She began attending at that age, helped by a grant, and trained there, including elocution lessons. Among her contemporaries were Emma Bunton and Kellie Bright.
Leaving school at 16 did not lead straight to stardom. She worked part-time jobs, including at a supermarket and a fast-food restaurant. At 17 she was approached on Oxford Street by a modelling scout. Modelling led to a fashion internship at Cosmopolitan, and during that period she was first asked to audition for screen work. She built her career role by role through the 1990s, largely in literary television — the training that later made her period work feel so assured.
The 1990s: Literary Adaptations and Steady Work
Hawes’s early credits include Dennis Potter’s Karaoke, Heartbeat and The Beggar Bride. She then became a familiar face in literary adaptations, notably:
- Our Mutual Friend (1998), from Charles Dickens
- Wives and Daughters (1999), from Elizabeth Gaskell
- The young Diana Dors in the ITV biopic The Blonde Bombshell (1999)
- Othello (2001) for ITV
- Tipping the Velvet (2002), from Sarah Waters’s novel
These roles established two qualities casting directors remembered: she could carry period costume, and she could play emotional restraint — saying a great deal while appearing to say very little.
Breakthrough: Spooks and Ashes to Ashes
Zoe Reynolds in Spooks (2002–2004)
Hawes rose to wide fame as Zoe Reynolds, an MI5 officer, in BBC spy series Spooks, a main cast member from 2002 to 2004 when the show defined a new, more ruthless style of British espionage drama.
Spooks proved she could lead a contemporary thriller — and it is where she met fellow cast member Matthew Macfadyen, who would become her husband. Searches still ask why Zoe left. In story terms, her time in the service ended after an operation went wrong. In career terms, Hawes moved on after three series, a pattern she would repeat.
DI Alex Drake in Ashes to Ashes (2008–2010)
Hawes then took the female lead in Ashes to Ashes, the follow-up to Life on Mars. She played DI Alex Drake, a present-day police officer who, after being shot, wakes up in 1981.
She played a modern woman stranded in a sexist 1980s workplace, carried the show’s emotional mystery, and held her own opposite Philip Glenister’s Gene Hunt — for three series, from 2008 to 2010, winning the Glamour Award for Best UK Television Actress in 2008.
She also reached a different audience as the voice of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: Legend, Tomb Raider: Anniversary and Tomb Raider: Underworld. Further leads followed, including Lady Agnes Holland in Upstairs, Downstairs (2010–2012) and DSI Martha Lawson in Identity.
Readers who follow British screen drama may also enjoy our profile of Damson Idris, the Snowfall and F1 star.
The Signature Roles That Defined Her
If one period explains why Hawes is searched for so persistently, it is 2014 to 2021 — four very different women, each of whom audiences still name her by.
DI Lindsay Denton in Line of Duty (2014–2016)
In Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty, Hawes played Detective Inspector Lindsay Denton across series two and three. Denton is the sole survivor of an ambushed police convoy and becomes the focus of an anti-corruption investigation.
What made it exceptional was its ambiguity. Viewers were never allowed to settle on whether Denton was corrupt, heroic or both. Hawes played her as guarded, exhausted and quietly defiant. It earned her a BAFTA TV Award nomination for Best Actress in 2015 and remains, for many critics, the benchmark performance of the series.
Louisa Durrell in The Durrells (2016–2019)
At almost the same time, she showed the opposite side of her range in ITV’s The Durrells. As widowed mother Louisa Durrell, who moves her four children to Corfu in the 1930s, she was warm, funny and romantic. The comedy-drama ran for four series and 26 episodes (2016–2019), and she was an executive producer on its final series. It is still the role strangers most often call her by — “Mrs Durrell.”
The same years also brought The Missing (2016), as Gemma Webster, and Queen Elizabeth in The Hollow Crown.
Home Secretary Julia Montague in Bodyguard (2018)
Hawes reunited with Jed Mercurio for BBC One’s Bodyguard in 2018, playing Home Secretary Julia Montague opposite Richard Madden as her protection officer, David Budd.
Montague was ambitious, controlled and politically ruthless, pushing a controversial surveillance bill while living under constant threat. Then, mid-series, she was killed in an explosion while giving a speech. Her death was not shown in a conventional, conclusive way — and that explains years of follow-up searches. Viewers still ask whether Julia is really dead, and Hawes has said fans ask her in person. In the story, however, Montague is dead; there is no return.
Bodyguard brought her a second BAFTA Best Actress nomination, in 2019.
Valerie Tozer in It’s a Sin (2021)
In Russell T Davies’s Channel 4 drama It’s a Sin, Hawes took a supporting role many viewers remember above the leads. She played Valerie Tozer, mother of Ritchie, a young gay man who moves to London in 1981 at the start of the AIDS crisis.
For most of the series Valerie appears to be a sweet, cardigan-wearing mother on the Isle of Wight who does not know her son is gay or ill. In the final episode, her grief, denial and anger erupt in her confrontation with Ritchie’s friend Jill. Critics singled out that finale as a masterclass.
She also earned a third BAFTA nomination — for Best Supporting Actress as Dorothy Wick in Mrs Wilson (2018). In total, she is a three-time BAFTA TV Award nominee.
Producer, and a Run of True Stories
By the end of the 2010s, Hawes was creating work, not just choosing it. In 2019 she set up Buddy Club Productions, and has spoken about needing to be proactive to create good roles for women of her age.
Through that shift came two ITV projects she both starred in and executive produced:
- Honour (2020) — as DCI Caroline Goode, the officer who investigated the murder of Banaz Mahmod
- Finding Alice (2021) — which she also co-created, playing a widow unravelling her late husband’s secrets
Other work includes Patricia Neal in To Olivia (2021), Julia Morley in Misbehaviour (2020), Dr Susannah Zellaby in The Midwich Cuckoos (2022), and Jo Cross in Crossfire (2022), another role she helped produce.
In 2023 she starred opposite her husband as Barbara Stonehouse in ITV’s Stonehouse, about the minister who faked his own death in 1974, played by Macfadyen — a reunion she has described as a joy. She followed that with Orphan Black: Echoes, as Kira Manning, and Netflix film Scoop (2024), as Amanda Thirsk, Prince Andrew’s private secretary.
What Is Keeley Hawes in Now? Her 2025–2026 Roles
This is the question driving most current searches — and 2025–2026 has been a busy stretch.
Miss Austen (BBC One, 2025) — Cassandra Austen
Miss Austen premiered on BBC One on 2 February 2025. The four-part drama, adapted by Andrea Gibb from Gill Hornby’s novel, stars Hawes — also an executive producer — as Cassandra Austen, Jane Austen’s elder sister.
Set mainly in 1830, after Jane’s death, it reimagines a famous literary mystery: why Cassandra burned so many of Jane’s letters. Flashbacks show the sisters’ youth, with Synnøve Karlsen as young Cassy and Patsy Ferran as Jane. Rose Leslie co-stars as Isabella Fowle. Hawes said she had wanted a change from police dramas, and that the appeal was a love story between sisters.
A follow-up, Miss Austen Returns, based on Hornby’s sequel novel The Elopement, was reported in June 2025 to be in development for the BBC and PBS Masterpiece, with Hawes expected to return as Cassandra. As of October 2026 no broadcast date has been officially announced, so it should be treated as in development rather than scheduled.
The Assassin (Prime Video, 2025) — Julie Green
In complete contrast, Hawes led Prime Video thriller The Assassin, launched in the UK on 25 July 2025. Created by Harry and Jack Williams, the six-part series casts her as Julie Green, a retired assassin on a Greek island whose past catches up with her when her estranged son Edward (Freddie Highmore) arrives looking for answers about his father. Mother and son are forced on the run together. Hawes is also an executive producer.
Prime Video has confirmed a second series of The Assassin, announced on 16 February 2026, with Hawes and Highmore returning and the action moving to Spain’s underworld. Production was set to begin later in 2026. As of October 2026, Prime Video has not announced a premiere date for series two.
Falling (Channel 4, 2026) — Anna
Her most recent role to air is Channel 4’s Falling, written by Jack Thorne (Adolescence, Help) and described by the broadcaster as his first love story. Hawes plays Anna, a devoted nun, opposite Paapa Essiedu as David, a Catholic priest. Neither expects to fall in love, and the six-part drama follows what that love means for their vows and faith. It aired from 19 May to 3 June 2026.
Together, the three roles sum up her position: a period lead on the BBC, an action lead on a global streamer, and a romantic lead on Channel 4 — all within about 16 months.
Husband and Family: Matthew Macfadyen
Keeley Hawes is married to actor Matthew Macfadyen. They met on Spooks in 2002 and married in 2004 — a marriage of more than two decades, which drives a steady stream of “are they still married?” searches whenever either has a new series. They are.
Macfadyen is known as Mr Darcy in Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Tom Wambsgans in HBO’s Succession. Despite that profile, the couple keep their home life private and rarely discuss their children in detail.
Hawes has three children:
- An older son, Myles, from her first marriage to cartoonist Spencer McCallum. Hawes and McCallum married in 2001 and divorced in 2004, and she has said in interviews that he remains a close friend.
- A daughter, Maggie, born in December 2004, with Matthew Macfadyen.
- A son, Ralph, born in September 2006, with Matthew Macfadyen.
Beyond those facts, the family keeps the children’s lives out of the press.
Charity Work: UNICEF UK Ambassador
Alongside acting, Hawes has long supported children’s charity work. She began working with UNICEF in 2012 and is a UNICEF UK Ambassador — a title confirmed on UNICEF UK’s own site, which quotes her on its education work.
Her UNICEF work has focused on children affected by conflict and displacement. She has visited Syrian refugee children and families in the Za’atari camp in Jordan and in host communities in Amman, and travelled on UNICEF visits including to Sierra Leone in 2018. UNICEF UK has also featured her supporting its education work. She has also supported children’s hospice care through CHASE in Surrey.
Why She Endures
Longevity in British television is rarely an accident. Hawes has lasted because she never played the same woman twice in a row, and never waited to be cast when she could help create the work herself.
A detective who time-travels. A detective nobody can read. A mother in Corfu. A home secretary. A nun, an assassin and Jane Austen’s sister — all played without repeating a trick. At 50, with Falling aired, The Assassin returning and a Miss Austen follow-up in development, she is in one of the busiest phases of her working life.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Keeley Hawes and when was she born?
Keeley Hawes was born on 10 February 1976 in London, so she turned 50 in February 2026 and is 50 years old as of October 2026. Her full name is Clare Julia Hawes.
Is Keeley Hawes married, and who is her husband?
Yes. She has been married since 2004 to actor Matthew Macfadyen, her co-star in Spooks. He is best known as Mr Darcy in Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Tom Wambsgans in Succession.
How many children does Keeley Hawes have?
She has three children: an older son, Myles, from her first marriage to Spencer McCallum, and two children with Matthew Macfadyen — daughter Maggie, born in December 2004, and son Ralph, born in September 2006. The family keeps their children’s lives private.
What is Keeley Hawes in now?
Most recently she played Anna, a nun, in Jack Thorne’s Channel 4 drama Falling (May–June 2026), opposite Paapa Essiedu. In 2025 she played Cassandra Austen in BBC One’s Miss Austen and retired assassin Julie Green in Prime Video’s The Assassin, which has been renewed for a second series. A follow-up, Miss Austen Returns, is reported to be in development.
Is Julia Montague still alive in Bodyguard — will Keeley Hawes return?
No. Julia Montague, the Home Secretary Hawes played in Bodyguard (2018), is killed in an explosion mid-series. Because her death was not shown in a conventional, explicit way, fans still ask Hawes about a possible return, but in the story the character is dead and she does not return.
