Sally Phillips

Sally Elizabeth Phillips (born 10 May 1970) is an English actress, comedian, and television presenter. She co-created and was one of the writers of the sketch comedy show Smack the Pony. She is also known for her roles in Jam & Jerusalem as Natasha "Tash" Vine, Miranda as Tilly, I'm Alan Partridge as Sophie, Parents as Jenny Pope, Set the Thames on Fire as Colette in 2015, Zapped as Slasher Morgan, and her guest appearances as the fictional Prime Minister of Finland Minna Häkkinen in the US TV series Veep. Phillips also co-starred in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as Mrs Bennet and in the role of Shazza in all three films of the Bridget Jones franchise. From 2004 to 2019, Phillips played the title role in the BBC Radio 4 comedy show Clare in the Community. In 2018 she was curator for series 12 of The Museum of Curiosity on BBC Radio 4. In 2022, she played the prison warden on Pennyworth. Early life Phillips was born in Hong Kong, which at the time was under British rule; her father Tim, later chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, was an executive with British Airways. In following her father's job, she grew up in the Far East, the Middle East, Italy and Australia. At the age of 13 she was sent to board at Wycombe Abbey School, where she studied her O-Levels and A-Levels. She then studied Italian and linguistics at New College, Oxford. Whilst there she joined the Oxford Revue, playing mostly male parts, alongside contemporaries including Stewart Lee and Richard Herring (who went on to have their own television show, Fist of Fun, in which Phillips appeared as "the girl who smells of Spam"). She then co-wrote and performed the one-woman show Benadetta, the Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy, based on a true story. She appeared in the 1990 Oxford Revue THRASH, which also starred Ed Smith.