34 Facts About Maxine Peake

Maxine Peake was born on 14 July 1974 and is an English actress and narrator.

Maxine Peake is known for her roles as Twinkle in dinnerladies, a sitcom on BBC One, as Veronica Ball in Shameless, the comedy drama from Channel 4, Martha Costello in the BBC One legal drama Silk, and Grace Middleton in the BBC One drama series The Village.

Maxine Peake has played the title role in a Royal Exchange production of Hamlet, as well as the notorious serial killer Myra Hindley in See No Evil: The Moors Murders, the critically acclaimed 2006 dramatisation by ITV of the Moors murders.

Maxine Peake went to Westhoughton High School and Canon Slade School in Bradshaw, acquiring two A-levels.

Maxine Peake joined the Octagon Youth Theatre in Bolton at the age of 13, before a period at the youth theatre of the Royal Exchange in Manchester.

Maxine Peake later did a two-year performing arts course at the Salford College of Technology.

Maxine Peake was a member of the Communist Party of Britain Salford branch in her youth.

Maxine Peake applied to multiple theatre schools but was rejected, until she obtained a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 21.

Maxine Peake has appeared in many television and stage productions, including Victoria Wood's dinnerladies, Channel 4's Shameless, in the lead role of barrister Martha Costello in the BBC's legal drama Silk and alongside John Simm in the BBC drama The Village, depicting life in a Derbyshire village during the First World War.

Maxine Peake portrayed Moors murderer Myra Hindley in See No Evil: The Moors Murders, which was broadcast in May 2006.

In January 2009, Maxine Peake appeared in her first major feature film role, as Angela, in the film Clubbed.

In 2012, Maxine Peake played the title role in Miss Julie at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, and previously played the part of Kristin in a 2000 production.

Maxine Peake played Doll Tearsheet in the BBC2 adaptations of Henry IV, Parts I and II.

Maxine Peake wrote, directed and starred in the play Beryl: A Love Story On Two Wheels about the life of the Leeds-born cyclist Beryl Burton, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2012.

Maxine Peake wrote a later play called Queens of the Coal Age again for Radio 4 that told the story of Anne Scargill and three other women who tried to occupy a coal mine in 1993.

In September 2013, Maxine Peake was appointed an Associate Artist of the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Maxine Peake's association with the theatre began in childhood and she was a member of the youth theatre.

In 2016, Maxine Peake resumed her partnership with Royal Exchange Artistic Director, Sarah Frankcom, to star as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.

Maxine Peake starred in "Metalhead", a December 2017 episode of Netflix's Black Mirror anthology.

Maxine Peake starred as Nellie in Mike Leigh's 2018 film, Peterloo, based on the events of the 1819 Peterloo Massacre in Manchester.

Maxine Peake starred as the eponymous protagonist in the 2018 film Funny Cow alongside a cast including Paddy Considine and Stephen Graham.

Maxine Peake starred in, and won critical acclaim for, the lead role of Winnie in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days at the Royal Exchange Theatre in May 2018.

Maxine Peake starred in The Nico Project as the Velvet Underground singer Nico at the Manchester International Festival in July 2019.

Maxine Peake is in a relationship with art director Pawlo Wintoniuk.

In 2009, Maxine Peake left London after living there for 13 years.

Maxine Peake said that living in Salford with Wintoniuk gave her the freedom to choose riskier roles and lower-paying jobs in theatre.

Maxine Peake was active in communist organisations during her youth and a member of the Communist Party of Britain.

In January 2014, Maxine Peake won the first Bolton Socialist Club Outstanding Contribution to Socialism Award for using her work to oppose the government's "crippling austerity measures".

In January 2016, Maxine Peake featured in the Climate Coalition's short film I Wish For You as Mia, with Jeremy Irons starring as her grandfather, to highlight the urgency of combating climate change.

In July 2015, Maxine Peake endorsed Jeremy Corbyn's campaign in the Labour Party leadership election.

Maxine Peake later stated that she was "inaccurate in [her] assumption of American police training and its sources".

Maxine Peake's statement was denounced by Labour leader Keir Starmer, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Labour Movement as an "antisemitic conspiracy theory".

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor under Corbyn, said that "criticism of practices of [the] Israeli state is not antisemitic" and that Maxine Peake's claim "was not antisemitic".

In February 2011, Maxine Peake spoke against the "class snobbery" that she felt affected the entertainment business of the age.