Lydia West

Lydia Dorothy West (born 24 June 1993^[1][2]) is a British actress. She is known for her roles in the BBC One series Years and Years and the Channel 4 series It's a Sin,^[3] the latter of which earned her a BAFTA nomination.

West is from London. Her maternal grandparents are Irish, and her father is from Montserrat.^[4] Her mother is a nurse and her father works in charity. She has an older sister and an older brother.^[5][6][7]

West trained in ballet, tap, jazz and contemporary dance as a teenager, but quit after a foot injury. After graduating from university with a degree in business, she worked as a personal assistant and trained part-time at Identity School of Acting.^[8][9][10]

Post graduation from IDSA, West was cast as Bethany Bisme-Lyons in Russell T Davies' 2019 BBC One and HBO series Years and Years.^[11][12] She starred in the 2021 Channel 4 series It's A Sin, also by Davies. She played Jill Baxter, who is loosely based on one of Davies' friends (Jill Nalder).^[8][13] Davies called her character "the heart of the story", a view echoed by Jack King of I-D who described the character as the "de facto matriarch".^[14][15] Her performance was described as a "standout" one by i.^[16]

In 2022, West appeared as Monique Thompson in the Apple TV+ series Suspicion and Reilly Clayton in Mike Myers' Netflix comedy The Pentaverate. She has roles in the films Love Again and Coffee Wars,^[8][17] as well as the series Inside Man and Gray.^[18]

• Lydia West at IMDb