Laura Haddock

Breakthrough in British Comedy

Laura Haddock wasn't looking for international recognition when she auditioned for a raunchy teen comedy about hormone-fueled adolescents. In 2011 she played Alison in The Inbetweeners Movie. The film grossed more than 80 million dollars and immediately put her on the radar of major commercial productions.

But her training had begun long before that. She left school at 17 to move to London and study drama at the Arts Educational School. In her mind there was no Plan B that didn't involve standing in front of a camera or on a theater stage.

And the gamble paid off.

Her early years in the industry were filled with supporting roles in British TV series such as Honest and Monday Monday. In 2011, she landed a brief role in Captain America: The First Avenger, where she appeared for only a few seconds as a fan asking for an autograph. It was only a warm-up for what would come next in superhero cinema.

The mother of the galactic universe

James Gunn chose her in 2014 to play Meredith Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy. It was a risky decision to bring back an actress who had already appeared in another Marvel film, but the director was looking for a specific fragility. Haddock shot her scenes in a cold, clinical setting to portray the character's death.

Her face became the emotional engine of a franchise that has generated billions of euros.

In 2017 she returned for the sequel to delve deeper into her character's past. But while the world saw her as Star-Lord's mother, she was already exploring the Italian Renaissance on cable television. For three seasons she brought Lucrezia Donati to life in Da Vinci's Demons.

That David S. Goyer production demanded a remarkable physical effort from her and training in period protocols. It was on that shoot that she proved she could carry the weight of a complex political storyline without relying on a male lead.

A change of pace in espionage

In 2017, Michael Bay cast her as the female lead in Transformers: The Last Knight. Playing Viviane Wembly meant facing chaotic shoots full of real explosions and practical effects. The film was a box office success, but critics were not kind to the script.

Discipline is his only religion.

After a few years focused on more personal projects and raising her children, in 2020 she took part in the series White Lines by Álex Pina. The shoot took place on locations in Ibiza and Mallorca. In 2022 she joined the world of Downton Abbey: A New Era, playing a silent-film star who must adapt to the arrival of sound.

In 2022, she radically changed her look for the Netflix series The Recruit. She plays Max Meladze, a former agent operating in Russia and Eastern Europe. For this role, she had to master a specific accent and take part in meticulously choreographed action sequences.

Filming for the second season of The Recruit was scheduled for 2024 across Vancouver and Seoul, with an allocated budget of over 50 million dollars.