11 Roles The Diplomat Star Jodie Whittaker Played She Was Cast In The Netflix Thriller

It’s fair to say that Jodie Whittaker is on a real roll right now.

Most of us became familiar with the British star thanks to her leading role as the Thirteenth Doctor in Doctor Who, or her performance in the crime drama Broadchurch, but in the last few years she’s been popping up all over the place.

Last year, she received a wave of praise for her work in the hard-hitting Netflix original Toxic Town, and since then, she’s appeared in everything from the sports drama Dear England to the frothy rom-com Office Romance, and now she’s playing a new prime minister in the political thriller The Diplomat.

But what about those Jodie Whittaker performances most of us are less familiar with?

Well, here are 11 films and TV shows you might not have realised that she appeared in long before she was making waves internationa…

With almost every big-name British star, you can pretty much guarantee that there’s a role in Holby City, Casualty or Doctors kicking about in the darkest recesses of their CVs, and Jodie is no exception.

Doctors marked her second on-screen role, portraying a new mum who is stunned to discover that her own mother has contracted an STI from an affair with a much younger man.

For her very first film role, Jodie found herself working with some acting greats, including Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Griffiths, Leslie Phillips and Andrea Riseborough (who was still on the come-up herself at this point in time).

Venus also marked the final Oscar nomination for Peter O’Toole, who was recognised in the Best Actor category for his leading performance.

The film centres around a dying actor, and his friendship with a much younger woman, played by Jodie, with whom he becomes infatuated.

Jodie shared the screen with yet more impressive names in the reboot of the St Trinian’s movies, which also starred Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Paloma Faith and Lucy Punch as students, and Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Celia Imrie and Lena Headey as faculty.

The future Doctor Who star played receptionist Beverly, a role she later reprised in the 2009 sequel, which added Zawe Ashton, Katherine Parkinson, David Tennant and the late Sarah Harding to its cast.

In 2008, Jodie played milkmaid Izz Huett in a BBC adaptation of the iconic Thomas Hardy novel Tess Of The D’Urbervilles.

She was joined in the series by Gemma Arterton as the title character, as well as Eddie Redmayne, Ruth Jones and Hans Matheson.

The Kid was a film adaptation of Kevin Lewis’ memoir of the same name, in which he opened about the abuse he suffered in childhood and the effect this had on him in later life.

Rupert Friend and Augustus Prew played the central character at different stages of his life, while Jodie played a potential love interest, named Jackie.

Long before Netflix had huge success with their adaptation of David Nicholls’ acclaimed love story, it was brought to the big screen in 2011 with… let’s say mixed results.

Jodie starred in the divisive romance film as Tilly, a uni friend of Anne Hathaway’s character, Emma. Tilly was later played by Amber Grappy in Netflix’s version of One Day.

Before she was cast in Broadchurch or Doctor Who, the role many of us will have known Jodie from is the Black Mirror episode The Entire History Of You.

Airing during the anthology series’ original run on Channel 4, the episode was set in a universe where people are implanted with a chip that records all of their memories, allowing them to rewind through them as they wish.

Jodie played Ffion, the wife of Toby Kebbell’s character, who we eventually discover is harbouring a secret from him.

The same year as her Black Mirror appearance, Jodie took the lead in the time-travelling thriller A Thousand Kisses Deep.

Co-starring Dougray Scott and Emilia Fox, the British film centred around a woman who is able to travel through time in order to track down the person responsible for her death.

Jodie joined a host of big British names in the festive comedy Get Santa, about a father-and-son who are forced to save Christmas when Santa somehow winds up imprisoned.

As well as Rafe Spall, Warwick Davis and Jim Broadbent as Father Christmas himself, the movie also marked the screen acting debut of future Heartstopper favourite Kit Connor.

A month after it was announced that Jodie would be taking over from Peter Capaldi at the helm of Doctor Who, she played the central role in the BBC medical drama Trust Me, as a woman who loses her job and decides to steal the identity of a friend in order to make a new life for herself and her daughter.

The Inbetweeners star Blake Harrison played Jodie’s ex-husband, Karl.

Billed as an anthology season, a second run of Trust Me aired in 2019, featuring an entirely new cast.

In this British drama, Jodie played the on-screen wife of future House Of The Dragon star Paddy Considine.

Paddy played an ageing boxing champion in the film, which centred around his character grappling with the health effects of a lifetime in the sport.