Perdita Rose Weeks was born on December 25th in South Glamorgan (Wales, UK), on Christimas Day. She was named after the heroine in William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.

“(Christimas) is the best birthday to have, honestly, because no one’s working. Everyone’s around, there’s always loads of good food, everything looks pretty, the house always looks lovely, it smells nice and everyone is in a jolly mood.” (quote from HILuxury (US) interview).

She was raised in East Sussex (South East England), daughter of Susan Weeks and Robin Weeks and has two sublings, the actress Honeysuckle and the talented photographer Rollo. Her heritage is Scottish and a lot of Irish.

Perd’s parents met at St Andrew’s University, where Honeysuckle was born when both were still students. “Dad used to wheel her around in a cardboard box on the front of his bike. She’s so brainy – she read English at Oxford – we often joke that she’s been to university twice.” 

The family home was in Sussex surrounded by rolling countryside and ponies in the paddock. Her father, Robin, is in advertising and her mother, Susan, is a freelance copywriter. The couple parted in 1993. Perdita claims she’s very like Susan.

“We’re both hyper-sensitive, vivacious, charming,’ she laughs. ‘And we look similar. But then I also look like Honeysuckle. We’ve all got the same wide mouth. It’s good for an actor to have, well, a big gob.” (Perdita, Daily Mail)

Perdita’s acting career started when she was just 6 years old after being discovered along with her sister and brother, by a children’s talent agent. While attending a boarding school in the south of England her mom would take her to auditions in London.

She strongly resembles her older sister, Honeysuckle Weeks. They costarred in Rag Nymph (1997), an adaptation of the Catherine Cookson novel, “The Rag Nymph”, playing older and younger versions of the main character.

“She was always my big sister, who I looked up to and I’d love to work with her. We always say one day we’ll write a script together.” (Perdita about her oldest sister Honeysuckle – HELLO! Fashion Monthly interview)

Her first role was co-starred, in an uncredited role, with her sister Honeysuckle in Episode 3 of “Goggle Eyes” (1993).

“We were protesters chanting, ‘We don’t want a bypass.’ We must have been six or seven. We had no great ambition to follow Honey into acting. But we were cute, so our mother agreed to our names being put on the books of Sylvia Young who ran an acting school and agency.” (Perd is the only person allowed to call her sister Honey. ‘She calls me Pork. I was a very fat baby.’) – [interview for Daily Mail]

She also did a TV commercials as a child alongside Jane Asher for McVities biscuits.

Perdita studied art history at the prestigious The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, with dreams of becoming an art curator for a gallery. But life took her in a different direction.

“I’m following in my sister Honeysuckle’s acting footsteps.”

– Check here Perdita’s full Filmography

She also stars in the 2010 horror film Prowl and the 2014 found footage horror film As Above, So Below. She became popular for her role as Mary Boleyn in the hit TV series The Tudors.

“I think the English public loves period drama. I love watching them myself. It’s such a massive part of our TV tastes, even though, as an actor, you don’t want to be doing the same thing again and again.”

Perdita is, you’ll have gathered, rather posh. She was perfect casting for the high-born, headstrong Lady Georgiana Grex, suffragette daughter of the Earl and Countess of Manton (played by Linus Roache and Geraldine Somerville) in Titanic (TV).

“Georgiana was instantly likeable to me. I responded to her spunkiness.” The saga was filmed in Budapest – “and it was boiling which made it jolly difficult to appear freezing as the ship goes down.” (Daily Mail interview)

She also has a half-share in an events company called Gumption Productions but her first love remains acting. “People ask if I want to continue with it as though I might grow out of it. This is what I do,’ she says firmly. ‘My bow has one string.”

Later, she became more famous playing scholar Catriona Hartdegan, an ally of Eva Green’s Vanessa, in Penny Dreadful. In 2018, Perdita stared as Juliet Higgins in the CBS-turned-NBC reboot Magnum P.I.

“She (Juliet Higgins) might have brought out something in me that potentially wasn’t there” 

“I was familiar with the (original) show but I didn’t watch it – it was a bit before my time. But I was aware of it the way everyone is – the red Ferrari, Hawai’i. That’s how I knew about Hawai’i. The very existence of the place in my mind was connected to that show.” (quote from HILuxury (US) interview)

The new Magnum P.I. has some noticeable differences including the gender swap of Jonathan Higgins. It’s now Juliet Higgins (Perdita’s character). “I’m far less tough than she is and far more apologetic but she is so fun to play. She might have brought out something in me that potentially wasn’t there to begin with – this sort of tough aspect and quite forthright and headstrong.” (quote from HILuxury (US) interview)

Others projects of her filmography includes a number of TV series, including Rebellion, The Great Fire, Lost in Austen and Midsomer Murders. As for the highlight of her career to date, she lists working with legendary film director Steven Spielberg on the 2018 film Ready Player One.

“He is the nicest person of all time; people say that, but it really is true. It was just extraordinary to see him work.” (about Spielberg, quote from HILuxury (US) interview)