Imogen Poots

Imogen Poots (born 3 June 1989) is an English actor whose screen work has moved between horror, literary adaptation, independent film and large-scale television. She was born in London to Fiona Goodall, a journalist, and Trevor Poots, a television producer. Her surname comes from her father’s Northern Irish family. Poots attended the YoungBlood Theatre Company and appeared early in the BBC medical drama Casualty before receiving wider attention as Tammy, one of the teenage survivors, in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s post-apocalyptic sequel 28 Weeks Later (2007). In 2009 she played Poppy in Jordan Scott’s boarding-school drama Cracks, alongside Eva Green and Juno Temple. In Neil Marshall’s Roman Britain adventure Centurion (2010), she was Arianne, a brigand who aids the surviving soldiers. Poots then played Amy Peterson opposite Anton Yelchin in Craig Gillespie’s Fright Night (2011), a remake of the 1985 vampire film. That year she was Blanche Ingram in Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre, adapted from Charlotte Brontë’s novel. Her 2013 work included a leading role as art student Julia Maddon opposite Aaron Paul in the video-game adaptation Need for Speed. She played Ellie Andrews in the romantic comedy That Awkward Moment and Jess Crichton in Pascal Chaumeil’s A Long Way Down, based on Nick Hornby’s novel. In Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank (2014), she portrayed Clara, the exacting keyboard player in the masked musician’s band. Poots was Amber, a member of a besieged punk group, in Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015); the film co-starred Anton Yelchin and Patrick Stewart. She played Caroline Ayres in Abrahamson’s The Little Stranger (2018), adapted from Sarah Waters’s novel. In Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium (2019), she and Jesse Eisenberg played Gemma and Tom, a couple trapped in the identical suburban development called Yonder. In Florian Zeller’s The Father (2020), Poots played Laura, a care worker encountered by Anthony, the dementia-stricken protagonist played by Anthony Hopkins. Since 2022, she has played Autumn in Prime Video’s neo-Western series Outer Range, created by Brian Watkins. Autumn arrives at the Abbott ranch in Wyoming and becomes entangled in the mystery surrounding a void on its land. Poots returned to the stage in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre in 2017, playing Honey alongside Imelda Staunton, Conleth Hill and Luke Treadaway. The production was directed by James Macdonald and opened in March.