Laura Haddock will be the first to admit that her career still has a long way to go before she can be considered to be in the same category as some of her compatriots, like Keira Knightley, Emily Blunt, and Kate Winslet. The actress, who has strutted her stuff both in front of the camera and on stage in front of a live audience, is however best known for her appearance as Meredith Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel. Read on to find out all there is to know about her career and other facts.

Biography of Laura Haddock, Guardians of The Galaxy Actress

Laura Haddock was born Laura Jane Haddock on the 21st of August 1985 in Enfield, London, England. The identity of her parents are not known to the public, however, her mother was known to have worked as a Reflexologist while her father was a financier. Her parents raised her in the town of Harpenden, Hertfordshire where she attended St George’s School.

At around the age of 17, Haddock, who had long dreamed about being an actress, left school and moved to London to study drama. She enrolled at the Arts Educational School in Chiswick.

Movies and TV Shows

Five years after she made the bold decision of chasing her dream, it all became reality as she made her acting debut in episodes of the television shows; My Family (2007) and Comedy Showcase (2007). She further appeared in the TV film The Colour of Magic (2007), where she played the role of Bethan.

In 2008, Laura Haddock continued to land roles in television; first appearing in Marple: A Pocket Full of Rye (2008) as Miss Grosvenor, Honest (2008) as Kacie Carter, and The Palace (2008) as Lady Arabella Worthesley Wolsey. In the following year, she moved to make her stage acting debut as she appeared in the play Famous Last at the Orange Tree Theatre, playing the role of Treena. She further played the role of Mary in Rutherford and Son at the Nothern Stage and appeared in the comedy-drama series Monday Monday (2009).

By the 2010s, Haddock began landing movie roles. Her first one was a small role as an Autograph Seeker in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). That same year, she was nominated for an Empire Award in the category of Best Female Newcomer for her role as Alison in The Inbetweeners Movie (2011). Following her role as Lucrezia Donati, the mistress of Lorenzo de’ Medici and lover of Leonardo da Vinci in Da Vinci’s Demons (2013-2015), Haddock portrayed her most famous role to date, that of Meredith Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), and the sequel Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017).

Other notable roles which Laura Haddock has had include that of Megan Cantor in Luther (2015), Pauline in The Musketeers (2016), and Viviane Wembley in Transformers: The Last Knight (2017).

Marriage with Sam Claflin

While auditioning for the film My Week with Marilyn (2011), Laura Haddock met English actor Sam Claflin, who is best known for appearing in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and The Hunger Games film series. As the story goes, Claflin, who attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, called his agent to exclaim that he had just met the woman of his dreams and that he intended to marry her following the first meeting between the pair. The two began dating in 2011 and just after a year into their relationship, Claflin showed the world he was over the moon about his significant other as he described her to an interviewer as his female counterpart and mother.

Laura Haddock’s Children

After a little over two years together, the two exchanged vows in a private ceremony in July 2013. Together, the couple has two children; a son named Pip Claflin, who was born on December 10, 2015, and a daughter whose name is not public knowledge but was welcomed to the world sometime in January 2018.

Awards and Recognitions

As mentioned above, Laura Haddock’s first notable performance was in The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) where her performance earned her an Empire Awards nomination. Two years later, The Detroit Film Critics Society and the Nevada Film Critics Society named her and her co-stars in the Guardians of the Galaxy as Best Ensemble. The Phoenix Film Critics Society and the Central Ohio Film Critics Association further nominated them for the same award. In 2016, Haddock was nominated in the category of Best Supporting Actress in a Movie or Miniseries at the Critics’ Choice Television Awards for her performance in Luther (2015).