Rebecca Root is an English actress, comedian and voice coach. She is most well-known for playing the leading role in the 2015 BBC Two sitcom Boy Meets Girl.[1] She has performed the role of Siobhan in the National Theatre's touring production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
Root was born in Woking, Surrey, England. She is the second child of an auxiliary nurse mother, while her father was a banker in Guildford. She has an older sister called Rachel and a younger sister, Rosalind, who is eight years her junior.
Before her breakthrough in 2015 playing a supporting role in the award-winning film The Danish Girl (her debut in film) and a lead role in the groundbreaking BBC Two romantic sitcom Boy Meets Girl, Root considered that she played roles described as “a romantic lead, debonair, knight, a soldier—typically and boringly ‘normal.’”[5]
In 2015 Root also starred in the BBC Radio 4 drama 1977,[6] about the transgender popular composer Angela Morley who had become a household name to British radio audiences as Wally Stott. It followed the year in which Morley was enlisted to complete composition of the musical soundtrack to the film Watership Down in three weeks flat.[7] She has appeared in the Doctor Who audio series Stranded, part of the Eighth Doctor's adventures, playing Tania Bell, the Doctor's first openly transgender companion, and an operative of Torchwood monitoring the Eighth Doctor when he is trapped on Earth due to the TARDIS suffering damage.
Root is also a voice coach,[8] teaching at the East 15 Acting School and from her home in Highgate, London. She started that career after she transitioned from male to female in 2003[3] and acting work became harder to find.[9] Root also advertises voice therapy lessons specifically for transgender people to help them "find a voice they feel fits their gender".[10][11][12][13]
Personal life
Root is a bisexual trans woman[14] and currently resides in London with her partner, actress Elizabeth Menabney.
She is also a passionate advocate for LGBT rights and is patron for the charities Diversity Role Models[15] and Liberate Jersey.[16]
Root auditioned for the role of the transgender character Lili Elbe, but the role was given to actor Eddie Redmayne,[9][19] with Root being given the role of Lili's nurse
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