Daughter of television writer Pat Dunlop, she began as a child actress in the 1970s featuring in a BBC version of the classic A Little Princess and as Lydia Holly in the ITV adaptation of South Riding. She studied at the Arts Educational Schools Her transition to adult roles began by playing Lizzie Hexam in a BBC version of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend in 1976 and featuring in the very first series of the long-running hospital drama Angels. Dunlop was cast alongside Diana Rigg and Elizabeth Taylor in the film version of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, and appeared in Roman Polanski's Tess. The following year she played Nora, the nurse who is at first terrified by The Elephant Man and then befriends John Hurt's character in David Lynch's 1980 Oscar nominated film. She also appeared in the horror anthology filmThe Monster Club as Luna, the human ghoul who befriends Stuart Whitman. Throughout this time and indeed throughout her career, she has regularly appeared on British TV including Murder Most English, Red Shift and Deadly Game, as well as two guest appearances in Doctor Who, playing roles in Frontios in 1984 and The Happiness Patrol in 1988. She starred opposite Oliver Tobias in Smuggler, and Peter Ustinov in the TV filmThirteen at Dinner. In 1986, she appeared as the pregnant Pattie in the TV version of the Alan Ayckbourn play Seasons Greetings. In the 1990s she starred in the long-running BBC sitcom May to December as Zoe Callender alongside on-screen husband Anton Rodgers. In 1995, Dunlop starred in the two part Gurinder Chadha directed drama Rich Deceiver as Ellie Freeman, a Liverpudlian housewife who secretly wins the pools and uses the money to covertly help her husband's career. She also starred in the ITV series Wokenwell and the same year was in the BBC serial The Phoenix and the Carpet. She appeared in a long-running series of television adverts for Kleenex directed by Mike Leigh and played Moira Pridwell in "Something to Treasure," S4:E1 of "Hetty Wainthropp Investigates". In 2000, Dunlop joined the cast of the ITV series Where the Heart Is playing Anna Kirkwall. Since 2008, she has played the role of Brenda Walker in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale. In 2013, after Brenda was diagnosed with a brain tumour, Dunlop shaved her head especially for the part.
