Rebecca Ferguson

Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström (born 19 October 1983), known professionally as Rebecca Ferguson, is a Swedish actress. She is best known for her lead role as Elizabeth Woodville in The White Queen (2013), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination, and her starring role as Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015).

Ferguson was born in Stockholm and grew up in the Vasastan district in central Stockholm. Her mother, Rosemary Ferguson, is English, and moved from Britain to Sweden at the age of 25. Her father is Swedish.

Rebecca attended an English-speaking school in Sweden and was raised bilingual, speaking Swedish and English.

From the age of 13, she worked as a model and appeared in magazines and on television commercials for cosmetic, apparel, and jewelry advertisements.

Ferguson has danced from a very early age; she did ballet, tap-dancing, jazz, street funk and Tango. She taught Argentine tango at a dance company in Lund, Sweden for a few years, while she continued her work on several short art film projects.

Ferguson attended the Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm and graduated in 1999.

Rebecca Ferguson alongside Steven Gätjen at the Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation global premiere in Vienna, Austria.

She came to prominence as upper-class girl Anna Gripenhielm in the soap-opera Nya tider. She went on to later play Chrissy in the Swedish-American soap Ocean Ave.

Swedish director Richard Hobert spotted her at the Simrishamn town market in 2011, which led to her starring in his film A One – Way to Antibes. She has also appeared in the horror film Strandvaskaren and the 2012 film Vi alongside Gustaf Skarsgård.

In August 2012, it was announced Ferguson had been cast to play Elizabeth Woodville in the ten-part BBC historical drama The White Queen, based on Philippa Gregory's The Cousins' War novels about the women of the Wars of the Roses. Ferguson's work in The White Queen has been met with praise, earning her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film.

In 2015, Ferguson played Ilsa Faust, the female leadin Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, for which she was highly praised. She will reprise her role in the sixth Mission: Impossible film.

In 2016, she played the dual roles of Katya and Lauren opposite Sam Reid and Charles Dance in the cold war espionage thriller by Shamim Sarif Despite the Falling Snow. For her acting she won the Best Actress award at the 2016 Prague Independent Film Festival.

Also in 2016, she appeared in Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins, opposite Meryl Streep, and Tate Taylor's thriller book adaptation The Girl on the Train. She will co-star in Tomas Alfredson's The Snowman, opposite Michael Fassbender and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and will play the lead in Daniel Espinosa's sci-fi Life.

In 2007, Ferguson gave birth to a son, Isac Hallberg, with former boyfriend Ludwig Hallberg. After her soap opera success and the birth of her son, she moved with her boyfriend to Simrishamn, on the Swedish south coast. The couple separated in April 2015.

Film

Television