Biography
Rose Eleanor Arbuthnot-Leslie is a Scottish actress. After winning a Scottish BAFTA for Best Acting Performance for her role in New Town, she rose to fame as Gwen Dawson in the ITV drama series Downton Abbey and as Ygritte in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones. She starred as Maia Rindell for three seasons of the CBS All Access legal and political drama The Good Fight.
Leslie was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised at Lickleyhead Castle in Aberdeenshire, her family’s 15th-century ancestral seat, where she lived until the age of 10. Her father, Sebastian Arbuthnot-Leslie, is the Aberdeenshire Chieftain of Clan Leslie. Her mother is his wife Candida Mary Sibyl “Candy” Weld of Clan Fraser of Lovat, whose maternal great-grandfather was Simon Fraser, 13th Lord Lovat, and a descendant of King Charles II.
She was educated at Rayne North School in Aberdeenshire and then Millfield in Street, Somerset, before spending three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Her break-through role came as Gwen Dawson, a housemaid, in the first series (2010–11) of the ITV television drama Downton Abbey. In 2011, while on Downton Abbey, Leslie briefly appeared in two episodes of the British drama series Case Histories.
In 2012, she was cast in seasons two, three and four of the popular HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones as the wildling Ygritte. In 2016, Leslie was cast in The Good Fight, a CBS All Access legal drama and spin off of The Good Wife. She plays Maia Rindell, a new lawyer who just passed the bar and whose family is involved in a financial scam, destroying her reputation. The first episode aired in February 2017. In July 2019, it was revealed that Leslie would not return for the show’s fourth season.
On 23 June 2018 Leslie married Kit Harington, who had played her love interest, Jon Snow, on Game of Thrones.
