Joanna Vanderham


Joanna Vanderham is a Scottish actress. She currently plays the role of Penelope Blake in the acclaimed Cinemax series, Warrior.

Early life

Joanna Vanderham was born in Perth and brought up in Scone. Her father Tom, a businessman, and mother Jill, a professor of cardiovascular research at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, divorced when she was a child. She grew up in Scone and Dundee.
Vanderham attended the Robert Douglas Memorial School in Scone, and then the High School of Dundee in Dundee, Scotland. She then went on to study Acting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

Career

Vanderham played Cathy in the Sky TV six-part serial The Runaway, which started on 31 March 2011, adapted from Martina Cole's novel.
She played the lead character of Denise Lovett in the popular sixteen-part BBC television series The Paradise, written by Bill Gallagher, and loosely based on Au Bonheur des Dames, a novel by Émile Zola. A second series aired on the BBC in October 2013, but a third series was not commissioned in 2014.
She also appears in the film What Maisie Knew with Alexander Skarsgård and Julianne Moore, and as Pamela in the BBC drama Dancing on the Edge, directed by Stephen Poliakoff.
In 2015, she appeared as Katherine "Kitty" McVitie in BBC Two period drama series, Banished, and as Marian Maudsley in the BBC One television film The Go-Between.
She received a Commendation at the 2016 Ian Charleson Awards for her Queen Anne in Richard III at the Almeida Theatre.

Filmography

Stage