Chloe Pirrie

Chloe Pirrie

Chloe Pirrie (born 1987) is a Scottish actress. She is known for her performance in the 2012 film Shell, and more recently in the TV series Under the Banner of Heaven (2022) and Dept. Q (2025). Other credits include the TV series The Game (2014), War & Peace (2016), The Living and the Dead (2016), Brief Encounters (2016), The Crown (2017), The Queen's Gambit (2020), Carnival Row (2020–2023), Hanna (2021), and Industry (2024–26); and the films Youth (2015), Blood Cells (2015), Stutterer (2015), and Emma (2020).

Early life and education

Chloe Pirrie

Chloe Pirrie was born in Scotland in 1987 and raised in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. She attended the Mary Erskine School, an independent girls' school in Edinburgh.

She began acting in school and decided to pursue it as a career after being cast in a school production of The Cherry Orchard. Pirrie moved to London at the age of 18 to attend the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 2009.

Career

Chloe Pirrie

Pirrie's professional acting career began while she was working as a waitress in a London burger restaurant. She debuted at the Royal National Theatre in a 2010 production of Men Should Weep. Her breakthrough role came in the feature film Shell (2012), a Scottish drama in which Pirrie played the eponymous main character. For this performance she won Most Promising Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards 2013, and was nominated for Best British Newcomer at the 2012 BFI London Film Festival Awards. In 2013, she played a politician in "The Waldo Moment", an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror. In the same year she was named as one of BAFTA's "Breakthrough Brits",

In 2014, Pirrie starred in the BBC miniseries The Game, a Cold War spy thriller in which she played an MI5 secretary. The following year she appeared as Sheila Birling in Helen Edmundson's BBC One adaptation of J. B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls, in the miniseries The Last Panthers, the British independent film Burn Burn Burn, and the Italian film Youth.

In 2015, she starred as Ellie in the Academy Award winner for Best Live Action Short Film, Stutterer.

She played Julie Karagina in the 2016 BBC miniseries War & Peace and was cast as Emily Brontë in To Walk Invisible, a BBC drama about the Brontë family created by Sally Wainwright. She also starred in episode "In the Footsteps of a Killer" as Grace Matlock, an employee at the Saint Marie Times in Death In Paradise.

She also played Lara in the 2016 BBC thriller series, The Living and the Dead. In 2017, she starred in the Netflix series The Crown, for its second season, playing Eileen Parker. In 2018, she appeared as Andromache in the BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City.

In 2019, she appeared as prosecutor Ella Mackie in BBC's thriller miniseries The Victim.

In 2020, she appeared in Autumn de Wilde's film adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Emma as Isabella Knightley, elder sister of the titular character played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Later that year she appeared as Alice Harmon, the birth mother of Beth Harmon, also played by Taylor-Joy, in the Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit.

In 2025, she appeared in the main cast for the first season of the Netflix series Dept. Q, portraying abducted Crown solicitor Merritt Lingard.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2012	Shell	Shell
2014	Blood Cells	Lauren
2015	Youth	Girl Screenwriter
Stutterer	Ellie Parks	Short film
Burn Burn Burn	Alex
2020	Emma	Isabella Knightley
Kindred	Jane
Look the Other Way and Run	Sammy
2024	Kryptic	Kay Hall

Television

<table><thead><tr><th>Year</th><th>Title</th><th>Role</th><th>Notes</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>2010</td><td>Doctors</td><td>Megan Rios</td><td>Episode: "Day Zero"</td></tr><tr><td>2013</td><td>Black Mirror</td><td>Gwendolyn Harris</td><td>Episode: "The Waldo Moment"</td></tr><tr><td>Misfits</td><td>Debbie</td><td>Episode #5.5</td></tr><tr><td>2014</td><td>The Game</td><td>Wendy Straw</td><td>Main cast</td></tr><tr><td>2015</td><td>An Inspector Calls</td><td>Sheila Birling</td><td>TV movie</td></tr><tr><td>The Last Panthers</td><td>Carla</td><td>Recurring role</td></tr><tr><td>2016</td><td>War & Peace</td><td>Julie Karagina</td><td>Recurring role</td></tr><tr><td>The Living and the Dead</td><td>Lara</td><td>Recurring role</td></tr><tr><td>Brief Encounters</td><td>Hellie</td><td>Main cast</td></tr><tr><td>To Walk Invisible</td><td>Emily Brontë</td><td>TV movie</td></tr><tr><td>2017</td><td>Death in Paradise</td><td>Grace Matlock</td><td>Episode: "In the Footsteps of a Killer"</td></tr><tr><td>The Crown</td><td>Eileen Parker</td><td>3 episodes</td></tr><tr><td>2018</td><td>Troy: Fall of a City</td><td>Andromache</td><td>Main cast</td></tr><tr><td>2019</td><td>The Victim</td><td>Ella Mackie</td><td>Main cast</td></tr><tr><td>Temple</td><td>D.I. Karen Hall</td><td>Main cast (series 1)</td></tr><tr><td>2019–2023</td><td>Carnival Row</td><td>Dahlia</td><td>Recurring role</td></tr><tr><td>2020</td><td>The Queen's Gambit</td><td>Alice Harmon</td><td>Main cast</td></tr><tr><td>2021</td><td>Hanna</td><td>Brianna Stapleton</td><td>Recurring role (season 3)</td></tr><tr><td>2022</td><td>Under the Banner of Heaven</td><td>Matilda Lafferty</td><td>Main cast (miniseries)</td></tr><tr><td>2024–26</td><td>Industry</td><td>Lisa Dearn</td><td>Recurring role</td></tr><tr><td>2025</td><td>Dept. Q</td><td>Merritt Lingard</td><td>Main cast (season 1)</td></tr></tbody></table>