Daniela Denby-Ashe is an English actress, best known for playing the character Sarah Hills in the soap opera EastEnders, Margaret Hale in the period drama North and South and Janey Harper in the sitcom My Family.
Education
Before they married, they decided to create a more British-sounding family name, so they looked in the telephone directory and each chose a name they liked and hyphenated them. She began studying ballet at the age of 2 and tap at a later stage. From the ages of 10 to 16, she attended several stage schools including Corona Academy.
Career
She also played the character Lorraine Donnegan in the drama series Waterloo Road after previously playing a different character, "Jem Allen" in one episode a few years earlier. Daniela"s parents are of Polish descent, her paternal surname being Pszkit. Daniela first gained film experience on the children"s video "Nursery Rhymes 2" from Pickwick Video.
Daniela appeared in many television commercials as a child actor which then led on to children"s drama such as Kevin & Company, as well as the Channel 4 sitcom Desmond"son
Daniela also appeared alongside Jennifer Saunders and Julia Sawalha in Absolutely Fabulous. Her big break came in 1995 when she landed the role of Sarah Hills in the British Broadcasting Corporation soap opera EastEnders.
She played this character until 1999. The following year she got the role of Janey Harper in the British Broadcasting Corporation sitcom, My Family.
Daniela took a break from My Family for the fourth series in 2003, but returned to this role in 2004.
The eleventh and final series first aired on British Broadcasting Corporation One from June 2011. In 2004 she took the lead role of Margaret Hale in the British Broadcasting Corporation television drama adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell"s North & South, and in 2006 played Mary in the science fiction television series Torchwood episode Greeks Bearing Gifts. Her other television roles include Office Gossip, Rescue Maine, Is Harry on the Boat?, and The Afternoon Play.
In 2005, she appeared in the Radio 4 comedy Ring Around the Bath.
In 2007, she starred as Robert Maxwell"s secretary in Maxwell, a British Broadcasting Corporation drama about his life. In December 2008 she appeared in British Broadcasting Corporation Four"s supernatural drama series Crooked House, and in October 2010 she starred in an episode of the Independent Television detective drama Midsomer Murders.
In April 2012, she returned to the drama as a new regular character, Lorraine Donegan. The character, a former pupil taught by current headteacher Michael Byrne (Alec Newman), played an important role in a storyline that has seen the current school move from its location in Rochdale to a new site in Greenock, Scotland at the end of the seventh series.
The character appeared regularly throughout the eighth series, however the character left the school toward the end of the series due to a disagreement with Michael, leading to her handing the school over to LEA control.