1991–2000: Television work and film debut

Friel made her professional acting debut at age 13 in the television miniseries G.B.H., which aired in the UK in 1991 and was nominated for several BAFTAs.^[9] This led to appearances on the soap operas Coronation Street and Emmerdale in 1991 and 1992, respectively. She was cast the following year as Beth Jordache on the Channel 4 soap Brookside, a role she played for two years. The character was involved in some of the series' most famous plots, including the death of her abusive on-screen father,^[10] and a storyline featuring the first ever pre-watershed lesbian kiss in British television history.^[7] The latter moment went on to be broadcast around the world—including 76 countries where homosexuality is illegal—when it was featured as part of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony.^[11] She later said, "For a very long time I was defined by that kiss. And I didn't want to be. I spent years turning down other lesbian roles because it felt like going back to Beth. [But it] did also make me want to take on parts that showed extreme sides of women".^[12] In 1995, Friel won a National Television Award in the category of "Most Popular Actress" for her work on Brookside.^[13]

Upon leaving the show, a decision that she initially thought to be a "terrible mistake",^[14] Friel was cast in an episode of Tales from the Crypt and appeared as one of the main characters in Stephen Poliakoff's television film The Tribe (1998), which attracted controversy for its inclusion of a ménage à trois sex scene.^[15] She then played leading roles in small-screen adaptations of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and Robert Louis Stevenson's St. Ives (both 1998), and co-starred in several British films, such as The Land Girls (1998), Rogue Trader (1999), and Mad Cows (1999).^[16] Next, she played Hermia in the 1999 film version of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream,^[17] saying later of the experience, "I think that [role] sort of changed things for me, especially in America, because the cast was really great—Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christian Bale—and people started to think, 'if she's working with [those people] she must be doing well'".^[18]

During that same period, Friel made her Broadway debut in a production of Patrick Marber's Closer, which ran for 172 performances at the Music Box Theatre in New York. In his review of the show for Variety, Charles Isherwood wrote:

It's the exquisitely lovely Friel who is the discovery here. Her Alice is both the nihilistic core of the play and its tender center, and the paradoxical mixture of toughness and fragility [she] brings to it are essential to the play's deepest truths. It's a star-making performance.^[19]

Friel won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play for her work as Alice.^[20]

2001–2009: Stage roles, film work, and Pushing Daisies

In 2001, Friel made her West End stage debut in an adaptation of Frank Wedekind's Lulu.^[21] Her film appearances during this time included lead roles in An Everlasting Piece and Sunset Strip (both 2000), as well as Richard Donner's big-budget fantasy adventure film Timeline (2003), in which she played the love interest of the main character. She also headlined the Canadian film The War Bride (2001), for which she received a Genie Award nomination for Best Actress,^[22] and co-starred with Michelle Williams that same year in the coming-of-age drama Me Without You. In his appraisal of the latter for Variety, David Rooney said, "Of the central duo, Friel has the most difficult job, playing an essentially unsympathetic brat … But the actress continually tempers the negatives with a vulnerability and insecurity that redeem her".^[23]

Friel's next starring role was in the Irish television film Watermelon (2003), where she played a headstrong Dublin girl who travels to England for an abortion.^[24] She was then cast as Attorney Megan Delaney in The Jury, an American legal drama series that ran on Fox for a single season in 2004. Writing for The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley called the show "clever, innovative", and said of Friel, "hers is the most textured and persuasive character".^[25] Friel later admitted to finding the job a challenge: "Everyone was saying, 'you will never believe how much hard work it is', and I was telling them not to worry because I'm used to it … but my God were they right … You run off the set from one scene and get changed and run back on. It is so fast and so very well organised but it is hard, hard bloody work".^[18] Next, she co-starred as a Geordie nurse in the British-American sports drama Goal! (2005; a role she reprised in its sequel) and played a recovering drug addict in the Toronto-set Canadian film Niagara Motel (2006). In a mixed review of the latter, The Georgia Straight's Ken Eisner said that Friel's performance carried "the most weight", while commending her "perfect local accent".^[26] In November 2006, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bolton for contributions to the performing arts.^[1]

In 2007, Friel was cast as Charlotte "Chuck" Charles in Pushing Daisies, an American comedy-drama series created by Bryan Fuller, which aired on ABC from October 2007 to June 2009. The show was warmly reviewed during its run,^[27] with television critic John Leonard believing it to be "at once satire, mystery, fairy tale, romance, lollipop, whimsy, and kazoo", and singling out Friel as a highlight.^[28] Her portrayal of Charles, a resurrected murder victim, won her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.^[29] Daisies was cancelled following its second season finale, with ratings having dropped from 13 million to 4.9 million viewers.^[30] Friel was subsequently offered a number of television roles in America, but turned them down to focus on her film career.^[31] Next, she received a nomination for the Czech Lion Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of the title character in Bathory (2008),^[22] a historical drama directed by Juraj Jakubisko. With a budget of UK£9.5 million, the film was the most expensive ever made in central Europe and broke box-office records in Slovakia.^[32] In her review for The Guardian, Gwladys Fouché described the film as being "bathed in a gothic atmosphere that tops every Dracula movie you've seen", while saying of Friel, "[she] spends two-and-half hours wielding swords, torturing peasants, surviving poison plots and making love to Caravaggio (yes, the Italian painter) to protect her land", adding that "[she] rolls her r's in an interesting attempt at a local accent".^[32]

Friel played Holly Cantrell, a British palaeontologist, in the big-budget science fiction adventure film Land of the Lost. Based on the 1970s television series of the same name, Lost was reviewed negatively upon its release in 2009, though Screen Daily felt that Friel and co-star Will Ferrell had chemistry.^[33] She returned to the West End that same year in an adaptation of Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, which played for four months at the Theatre Royal Haymarket and gained attention for its addition of nudity,^[34] with increased security being implemented at performances after nude images of Friel were posted online by a theatregoer.^[35] The production received mixed reviews, but Friel's portrayal of Holly Golightly, one of her "all time favourite heroines",^[36] was praised: Alice Jones of The Independent described her as "infectious", adding, "Gorgeously gamine and wrapped, like a treat from Tiffany's, in an array of ever more extravagantly bowed cocktail dresses, she's a bewitching stage presence, at once perilously provocative and child-like";^[37] while Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter believed that she brought "confidence" and "considerable depth" to the part.^[38] In November 2009, Friel received an RTS Award for "Best Performance in a Drama Series" for her portrayal of Dee, a struggling single mother, in two episodes of BBC One's The Street.^[39]

2010–2019: Marcella and other television roles

Friel had key roles in three features released in 2010: the Woody Allen-directed comedy You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, crime drama London Boulevard, and the science fiction thriller Limitless. She appeared as a fictionalised version of herself in an episode of the mockumentary series Come Fly with Me the following year,^[40] as well as starring in Neverland on the SyFy channel—a prequel to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan—and earning strong reviews for her performance in the ITV drama Without You.^[41][42] She then returned once more to the West End in an adaptation of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, which ran from November 2012 to February 2013,^[43] receiving positive notices for her portrayal of aristocratic newlywed Yelena.^[44][45] Next, she headlined the three-part BBC drama series Public Enemies (2012) and starred in two British films: The Look of Love—a biopic where she played the wife of Paul Raymond—and Having You (both 2013). In September 2013, she was cast as one of the main characters in the Ridley Scott-directed pilot, The Vatican,^[46] though—due in part to a negative response from Catholic organisations—Showtime decided not to proceed with a full series.^[47]

In 2015, Friel was cast in the lead role of Sergeant Odelle Ballard in American Odyssey, which ran for a single season on NBC. She also starred in the acclaimed Norwegian miniseries The Heavy Water War (known elsewhere as The Saboteurs), a drama set during World War II.^[48] Next, she had leading roles in four films: Urban and the Shed Crew (2015), based on the memoir of the same name;^[49] dark comedy The Cleanse and revenge thriller I.T. (both 2016); and the Irish-Canadian crime drama Tomato Red (2017), where her role as a "trailer trash" mother drew attention for being against type.^[50][51]

Friel began playing the title role of Marcella Backland in the British "Nordic noir" detective series, Marcella, in 2016. Speaking of her decision to take on the part—a former detective sergeant who returns to work to investigate an open serial killer case—she told a journalist prior to the debut of the second season, "I nearly pulled out of [the job] after I'd accepted it [because] I just thought, 'Oh God, how can I do this? There are so many amazing female detectives that have done it so well, I don't know what I can offer differently' … so when [the first season] was received as well as it was, I thought maybe I had done something that is different and I've put my own ownership and my own stamp on it".^[52] In 2019, Friel collected the International Emmy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Backland,^[53] which Decider felt was "extraordinary":

Friel is a master of expressions. From scene to scene the actress' face can shift from chilling hard stares to wide-eyed looks of terror. It's never completely clear what Marcella is thinking or what she's going to do next. Not only does this allow Friel to explore her wide range, but it adds to the unsettling tone of this show".^[54]

Marcella's third and final season debuted on Netflix in 2020,^[55] with Friel commenting afterwards that a fourth season was unlikely to happen.^[56]

On the second season of The Girlfriend Experience (2017), an anthology drama series produced by Steven Soderbergh for the Starz network, Friel played Erica Myles, a Republican engaged in relationships with two women. Her performance was described as "outstanding" by The Atlantic^[57] and "fantastic" by Variety, who added, "sometimes [the camera] just focuses on her eyes, which can either well up with frustrated tears or shutter in Erica's emotions, as changeable as the sky reflected in a lake".^[58] Referring to the series' intense work schedule and the explicit nature of its sex scenes, Friel said that the role was her "most challenging job to date".^[59] That same year, she was nominated for a British Academy Television Award for her work in the six-part BBC drama Broken.^[60] Describing her "scene-stealing" portrayal of destitute mother Christina Fitzsimmons, Metro's Sarah Deen noted, "Friel excellently [plays] Christina's frantic desperation … all wild eyes, flapping shoes and dry humour ('I went to Mass and I got the sack. What am I gonna get tomorrow? Cystitis?'). You couldn't tell if her wit was genuine or hastily developed as a defence mechanism to stop her from bursting into tears".^[61]

In the ITV drama series Butterfly, which aired over three weeks in October 2018, Friel starred as the parent of a transgender child. Lucy Mangan of The Guardian described the show as "important, truthful ... a wonderfully delicate drama that covers new ground carefully and features fully realised characters",^[62] while the New Statesman felt that Friel's portrayal of a mother "racked by guilt" was "sterling".^[63] Friel said she and the show's creators felt a great responsibility to make it as realistic as possible: "We met all these wonderful families, who were saying, 'please tell our story and tell it properly'. I said, 'do you not feel represented?' And they said 'no'. People have so many comments and opinions, but they actually can be somewhat ill-informed".^[64] The following year, Friel headlined the six-part miniseries Deep Water, which Metro described as a "dark soap opera", adding, "The performances, with a very human and relatable nasty streak running through each one, [elevate it] to a must-binge drama … Friel excels when it comes to playing harassed women, usually ones with a secret to keep, and the actress completely [disappears] into [her character] as she [fights] to get her marriage back".^[65]

2020–present

Friel starred as Sharon Pici, a Kansas City detective, in the seven-part psychological thriller series The Box, which premiered on Viaplay in November 2021.^[66][67] The following year, she co-headlined the Fox musical drama series Monarch opposite Susan Sarandon. Friel played Nicolette "Nicky" Roman, a singer-songwriter trying to continue her family's legacy while forging her own path in the country music industry. In his review for The A.V. Club, Max Gao said:

Friel, not Sarandon, is the show's real leading lady—and a pretty great one at that … She belts out song after song, delivers memorable, fast-paced one-liners in a Texas accent ("I was going to say be careful about the rats, but there's no need because… you're going to fit right in"), and plays Nicky with such steadfast conviction that it's easy to wonder why she hasn't been more successful on this side of the pond since starring in ABC's Pushing Daisies … thankfully [this is] a role that is worthy of her talents.^[68]

Friel performed all the songs her character sings—a mixture of covers and originals—herself.^[69] It was announced in December 2022 that the series had been cancelled after one season.^[70]

Friel's portrayal of Grace Gordon, a woman fighting for civil rights in 1960s America, in the historical drama Charming the Hearts of Men (2021) was met with critical acclaim.^[71][72][73] Next, she appeared as a Liverpudlian nurse determined to help one of her patients unravel a sinister mystery, in the British psychological thriller Locked In (2023), with The Guardian calling her performance "as excellent as ever".^[74]

Film

Television

Voice work

Music videos