Career
It was via Glasgow Citizens' Theatre that she was cast in the hospital TV series Cardiac Arrest (although it was not her first television role). Her role as Dr. Claire Maitland earned her a Scottish BAFTA nomination in 1995.
She was one of the stars of the popular TV series Cold Feet, playing Rachel Bradley, a role which garnered her a British Comedy Award nomination in 1997. She also starred in An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, playing Cordelia Gray, and made notable recurring appearances on the American series Friends as Ross Geller's girlfriend, wife and finally ex-wife Emily Waltham, which gave her wide exposure on American network television. Other notable roles include Lorna Johnson in Truth or Dare (in which John Hannah also starred), Caroline Meagher in The Investigator (alongside Laura Fraser), and Julie Matthews in Curt Truninger's Dead by Monday.
She was nominated for another Scottish BAFTA in 1997 for her role as Lorna Johnson. Dead by Monday won the Angel Award for Best Film at the Monaco International Film Festival in 2003 and the Portland Festival of World Cinema award for best feature film in 2001.
On-stage, Baxendale starred as Christine in Patrick Marber's After Miss Julie, and in 2005 appeared as Romy, the eponymous title role in The Woman Before at the Royal Court alongside Nigel Lindsay, Saskia Reeves, Tom Riley and Georgia Taylor but has also played various roles including that of Ophelia in Hamlet (the Marovitz Hamlet) along with Henry Ian Cusick. She was a finalist for the 1993 Sunday Times Royal National Theatre Ian Charleson Award (best classical actor under 30). In 2009 Baxendale played Lara in Amongst Friends alogside Aden Gillett and Emma Cunniffe at Hampstead Theatre.
She played Pandora Braithwaite in Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years in 2001 and "Maggie" in the multiple award-winning Bolse Vita. She also appeared in Saving Nellie, a physics programme running on Teachers TV. In 2007 to January 2008 she starred in Swimming with Sharks alongside Christian Slater at London's Vaudville Theatre. In 2008 and 2009 she has also appeared in several TV adverts for Morrisons, a British supermarket chain.
In January 2011, she co-starred with Trevor Eve in the three-part ITV drama Kidnap and Ransom, filmed on location in South Africa. Later in the same year, she starred as DCI Marion Bettany in Val McDermid's radio crime drama Village SOS.
In 2010 Helen Baxendale appeared in the pilot episode of Dirk Gently as Susan Harmison. In 2012 she reprised her role in the second episode of the commissioned first and only series. She then appeared in the Inspector George Gently episode "The Lost Child" alongside Mark Gatiss.
She currently stars in Cuckoo as Lorna, the mother in-law of the titular Dale 'Cuckoo' Ashbrick.
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