Her mother, originally from Loanhead, Scotland, relocated to Birmingham during World War II to work as a munitions and aircraft worker in the factories, where she met Badland's father.

[4][5] After drama school, Badland joined Ian McKellen's Actors' Company at the Cambridge Arts Theatre; her first professional productions were in director Noel Willman's Three Arrows (by Iris Murdoch) and Richard Cottrell's Ruling the Roost (Georges Feydeau) in October 1972.

[2][12][13] Badland joined the cast of Jim Cartwright's play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, which centres on a shy young woman from Lancashire who expresses herself through song, at the Aldwych Theatre from October 1992 through February 1993.

[23] During the Tiata Delights Festival in 2009, Badland performed in Zimbabwean playwright Michael Bhim's The Golden Hour, a thriller set in a London hospital where the main character encounters a baby he thinks has been brought to the country illegally.

[24] That same year she participated in Hampstead Theatre's (London) fiftieth anniversary season by starring in Michael Frayn's play Alphabetical Order, which is set in a provincial newspaper library.

[25][26] Finishing out 2009, Badland featured as psychic medium Madame Arcat in Noël Coward's comedy Blithe Spirit at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, England.

[27][28] With a cast consisting mostly of child actors, Badland starred as the headmistress in 2010's Royal Court Theatre production of Kin, a disturbing play detailing the lives of young girls at boarding school.

[57] She went on, the next year, to co-star in the PBS mini-series A Little Princess, based upon Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's novel (1905) and a series one episode of the BBC's sitcom You Must Be the Husband.

[83] During that time she also featured in NBC's two part mini-series Gulliver's Travels, BBC's children's series The Demon Headmaster, and director Martyn Friend's made-for-TV movie Cuts.

[91][92][93][94] That same year, Badland guest-starred on the series two premiere of BBC's medical drama Holby City, TNT's made-for-TV movie A Christmas Carol opposite Patrick Stewart, and ITV's Alan Bleasdale penned mini-series Oliver Twist.

[107] Badland was once again showcased in an Agatha Christie's adaptation in 2003, this time portraying Mrs Spriggs in the episode "Five Little Pigs" in the series nine premiere of ITV's Poirot.

[111][112][113][114] In a crossover episode of medical dramas Holby City and Casualty, where fans decided the fate of certain characters, Badland guest-starred as Wendy Wincott.

Portraying Angela Robbins, a disturbed inmate who suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, Badland appeared at Larkhall Prison in 2006 in an episode of the eighth series of ITV One's drama Bad Girls.

[118][119] The next year she starred in Hat Trick Productions' made for TV Film Miss Mary Lloyd and featured in her third role on BBC's Doctors in the series nine episode entitled "Background Noise".

[125] BBC Three's mini-series Personal Affairs, a candid look at office life among up and coming women, featured Badland as Mahiri Crawford, and the made-for-TV film Whatever It Takes saw her portray the role of Connie.

[145] Beginning in 2014, Badland portrayed the featured recurring role of Mrs Fitzgibbons in Starz's television adaptation of Diana Gabaldon's best selling Scottish time travel novel Outlander.

[146] That same year she featured in an episode of BBC's mystery series Father Brown "The Daughters of Jerusalem" as Judith Bunyon, before a turn as her EastEnders character Aunt Babe in the made for TV Film Neighbours 30th Anniversary Tribute: Ramsey Square.

[147][148] In May 2018, Badland reached the final of BBC's charity series Pointless with Midsomer Murders' Neil Dudgeon, eventually donating £500 to the Midland Langar Seva Society.

[159][160] Writer John Brosnan's horror film Beyond Bedlam (1994) and director Angela Pope's drama Captives, which focused on a prison dentist's illicit affair with an inmate, both featured Badland in 1994.

[181][182][183] The Baker, a comedy from director Gareth Lewis about a hit man seeking refuge from his career, saw Badland feature as Martha Edwards early in 2007.

[185][186][187] In 2009, Badland signed on for a role in Jam, the first short film from three eighteen year old filmmakers, which was financed through crowdfunding after attracting the attention of the public and celebrities.

[188] Continuing with short films, she starred in the Oscar nominated Wish 143, the story of a young man trying to live life before succumbing to cancer, from director Ian Barnes.

[189][190] 2012 saw Badland featured in Mother's Milk, a drama based upon Edward St. Aubyn's novel of the same name, before returning to short films for 2013's The Girl In A Bubble and 2014's A Quiet Courage.

The first was the biographical drama A Quiet Passion, directed by Terence Davies and starring Cynthia Nixon, which chronicled the life of poet Emily Dickinson.

[204][205][206][207] Richard Monk's Church, broadcast in February 2005 and starring Badland alongside Andrew Garfield, tells the story of sex and religion through the eyes of two different men.

[212] From there, Badland featured as Tilly Carbury in BBC Radio 4's 15 Minute Drama The Way We Live Right Now (2008), an adaptation of Anthony Trollope's satirical novel, and served as a narrator for Heather Couper's Cosmic Quest, an educational history of astronomy.

[213][214] Yerma, a poetic play touching on the themes of love, infertility, and isolation by Spanish author Federico García Lorca, saw Badland star alongside Emma Cunniffe and Concrad Nelson in 2010 on BBC Radio 3.

[220] She later guest-starred in an episode of Sebastian Baczkiewicz's dark fantasy-adventure radio program Pilgrim (2013), a series of tales that followed the adventures of main character and immortal being William Palmer.

[222] Doing Time: The Last Ballad of Reading Gaol, based upon the poem by Oscar Wilde and showcasing odd historical facts from the prison's records, featured Badland in 2014.