Lisa Tamsin Faulkner is an English actor, presenter and celebrity chef.
Early life
Faulkner was born in Merton, London. She was educated at Tiffin Girls' School in Kingston upon Thames. When she was sixteen, her mother, Julie, died from throat cancer. Faulkner has since discussed her bereavement in a number of newspaper and magazine interviews.
Career
At the age of 16, Faulkner was approached by a modelling scout while she was waiting on the platform of a London tube station. In 1992 she made her first acting appearance in The Lover, starring Jane March. At age 23, Faulkner played the part of Alison Dangerfield in the British TV drama Dangerfield. She also starred in the 1995 British filmA Feast at Midnight. In 1996, she appeared in And The Beat Goes On. Two years later, she played Louise Hope in the Channel 4 soap Brookside. Between 1999 and 2001, she played Dr Victoria Merrick in Holby City, before her character was stabbed to death in her own home by the father of a patient whose life she could not save. In the TV show Spooks, her character Helen Flynn was killed off in only the second episode of the first series, having her hand and face burnt in a deep fat fryer before being shot in the head at point-blank range. In 2004, she starred on ITV as D.S. Emma Scribbins in Murder in Suburbia, in which she played a CID policewoman in company with Caroline Catz, who played her boss, D.I. Ashurst. The show returned for a second series in 2005, with Scribbs adopting the then popular fashion style of "boho-chic". In 2006, she starred in the TV seriesNew Street Law. Since June 2008, Faulkner has narrated the BBC1 show Heir Hunters, replacing Nadia Sawalha. She regularly teaches at Amanda Redman's Artists Theatre School. Faulkner was voted one of FHM's "100 Sexiest Women in the World" six times between 1999 and 2004. She regularly contributed to Big Brother's Little Brother, a magazine programme about the reality UK TV show Big Brother on Channel 4. She is a regular contributor to the Sky1 magazine show Angela and Friends., and the Channel 5 chat show The Wright Stuff. In 2010, she won Celebrity Masterchef, beating Christine Hamilton and Dick Strawbridge in the final. She appeared in the third-season premiere of the Canadian show Murdoch Mysteries when the series filmed an episode in and around Bristol, England, that was broadcast in 2010, and she returned for her second guest appearance in the fourth season in 2011. She also appeared twice in the fifth season. She co-hosted Real Food Family Cook Off on Channel 5 with Matt Dawson. The series was broadcast in 2011. In 2013, she co-hosted the daytime Channel 4 series What's Cooking? with Ben Shephard and, in 2015, was reunited with Shephard to co-host an episode of This MorningSummer. In March 2017, it was announced that she would be joining EastEnders as Fi Browning, a "stylish and sophisticated" businesswoman. Fi was later revealed to be Sophie Wilmott-Brown, the daughter of Kathy Beale's rapist James Willmott-Brown. In March 2019, Faulkner and John Torode were given a weekend cooking show. They host John And Lisa's Weekend Kitchen on Sunday mornings on ITV. In July 2019, Faulkner appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox alongside her friend Nicola Stephenson.
Books
Faulkner's first cookery book, Recipes from my Mother for my Daughter, was published in 2012. Her second book, The Way I Cook, was published in September 2013. On 26 February 2015, she published another book, ''Tea & Cake'
Personal life
In 2005, Faulkner married Chris Coghill, her co-star from the TV series Burn It, in Richmond Park, London. The couple adopted a fifteen-month-old girl who was born in 2006. However, the couple separated and divorced in 2011, and she is now married to the Australian chef John Torode.
