Emily Berrington is an English actress who played Simone Al-Harazi in 24: Live Another Day (2014) and Niska in the Channel 4 and AMC TV series Humans (2015).
Berrington’s parents were social workers who subsequently started a training business for the public sector. She has three siblings: Amy, a professor in the United States; Tom, who works for IMG in Abu Dhabi; and Katie, who writes for Vogue. Berrington attended Cheney School and later studied development geography at King’s College London, writing her dissertation on “the economic collapse of Argentina and the resulting rise of cooperativism”.
Berrington was involved in youth drama but pursued a career in politics, working at the House of Commons for Labour Party MP Siobhain McDonagh of the London constituency of Mitcham and Morden. She found politics “terrifying, very masculine and not particularly encouraging to young blonde women” and thought “this is a tough industry, can an acting career be any more intimidating?” In 2009 she won a place studying in acting at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, graduating in 2012.
While studying there she had a part in the Almeida Theatre’s production of Children’s Children and Michael Winterbottom’s The Look of Love.
In 2013 she starred as Jane Shore in the period drama The White Queen and in 2014 she starred as Stacey in the BBC sitcom Outnumbered and as Simone Al-Harazi in the thriller series 24: Live Another Day. Her character on 24 had been planned to appear in two episodes, but that was expanded to seven. Her first major supporting film role came in the 2014 comedy film The Inbetweeners 2. In 2015 she began playing Niska in Channel 4 series Humans.
