CV: Natascha McElhone

The British-born actress stars in The First (9pm, Ch4), the latest in a winning streak of leading roles in glossy US TV dramas. Here’s how her CV shapes up…

Early years: Born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in 1969, Natascha grew up in Brighton with her journalist mother, Noreen Taylor, and stepdad Roy Greenslade, also a journalist. She graduated from drama school in 1993, but had already made her first TV appearances, in 1990 episodes of The Ruth Rendell Mysteries and a 1991 episode of Bergerac. Movies: Her film debut was in Surviving Picasso (1996), in which she played Francoise Gilot, muse and lover of the artist, played by Anthony Hopkins. Two years later, she appeared in The

Truman Show as the love interest of the unwitting reality TV star, played by Jim Carrey. And in 2002, she played an especially beguiling figure in Steven Soderbergh’s acclaimed Solaris remake, alongside George Clooney.

TV: In the UK, she had roles in Dennis Potter’s final two series, Karaoke and Cold Lazarus, in 1996. After concentrating on movies throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, she had a US TV hit with Californication (2007-14), opposite David Duchovny as a womanising writer. In addition to her role as a CEO in The First, she currently stars as the First Lady in Designated Survivor (2016-present). Personal life: In 2008, the plastic surgeon Dr Martin Kelly – her husband, and the father of their three children – died suddenly, aged just 43. Natascha wrote about her grief and loss in a powerful epistolary memoir, After You.