Samantha Spiro

Samantha Spiro is a double Olivier Award-winning English actress.

She is best known for portraying Barbara Windsor in the stage play Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick and the television film Cor, Blimey!, DI Vivien Friend in M.I.T.: Murder Investigation Team, and Melessa Tarly in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

In 2001, Spiro was awarded the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the 2000 season Donmar Warehouse production of Merrily We Roll Along. In 2010, Spiro was once again awarded the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in Hello, Dolly! at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park.

Spiro won a 2004 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, for the production of A Little Night Music at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in Chicago, Illinois.

In the 2011 British Comedy Awards she won the Best Female Comedy Breakthrough Artist award for her performance in Grandma's House.