Crystal Clarke

Clarke was born and raised in Essex County, New Jersey, to Caribbean parents; her mother is from Trinidad and her father was from Guyana.[4][5] She has one older brother.[6] Clarke attended Newark Arts High School, graduating in 2011.[7] She also spent part of her childhood in Tennessee.[8] Clarke made the decision to leave the United States to pursue acting because she felt her race and class put her at a disadvantage.[9] Clarke moved to Glasgow to attend the Royal Conservatoire and graduated in 2014.[4]

Clarke made her West End theatre debut as Hester Worsley in Dominic Dromgoole's revival of A Woman of No Importance. She had roles in the Force Awakens, and Last Jedi installments of Star Wars.[5] She, Lupita Nyong'o and Maisie Richardson-Sellers were the first three black actresses to appear in a Star Wars film in the former.[10] She also appeared in the 2019 Black Mirror episode "Smithereens"[11] and the Channel 5 film Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar.[12]*

Clarke played Tina Argyll in the 2018 mini-series adaptation of Agatha Christie's Ordeal by Innocence.[3][13] In 2019, she began starring as Miss Georgiana Lambe in the ITV and Masterpiece adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sanditon. Lambe is the only black character written by Austen.[8] In 2022, she played Magali in The King's Daughter. The same year, she appeared in Sam Mendes' Empire of Light.[12]

• Crystal Clarke at IMDb
• Crystal Clarke at Curtis Brown