Her roles include Emma Peel in the TV series The Avengers (1965–1968); Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, wife of James Bond, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969); Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones (2013–2017); and the title role in Medea in the West End in 1993 followed by Broadway a year later.

Rigg made her professional stage debut in 1957 in The Caucasian Chalk Circle and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959.

Rigg appeared in numerous TV series and films, playing Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968); Lady Holiday in The Great Muppet Caper (1981); and Arlena Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982).

Her other television credits include You, Me and the Apocalypse (2015), Detectorists (2015), the Doctor Who episode "The Crimson Horror" (2013) with her daughter, Rachael Stirling, and playing Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small (2020).

[4] Rigg hated her boarding school, where she felt like a fish out of water, but believed that Yorkshire played a greater part in shaping her character than India did.

[5] She trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art[6] from 1955 to 1957, where her classmates included Glenda Jackson and Siân Phillips.

[11][12] In 1982 she appeared in the musical Colette, based on the life of the French writer and created by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, but it closed during an American tour en route to Broadway.

In 2006 she appeared at the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End in a drama entitled Honour, which had a limited but successful run.

In 2007 she appeared as Huma Rojo in The Old Vic's production of All About My Mother, adapted by Samuel Adamson and based on the film of the same title directed by Pedro Almodóvar.

[14] She appeared in 2008 in The Cherry Orchard at the Chichester Festival Theatre, returning there in 2009 to star in Noël Coward's Hay Fever.

[17] From 1965 to 1968 Rigg appeared in the British 1960s television series The Avengers (1961–69) opposite Patrick Macnee as John Steed, playing the secret agent Emma Peel in 51 episodes.

[22] Her other films from this period include The Assassination Bureau (1969), Julius Caesar (1970), The Hospital (1971), Theatre of Blood (1973), In This House of Brede (1975), based on the book by Rumer Godden, and A Little Night Music (1977).

The following year she received acclaim for her performance as Arlena Marshall in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun, sharing barbs with her character's old rival, played by Maggie Smith.

In 1986 she played Miss Hardbroom in a Central Television adaptation of The Worst Witch, starring opposite Tim Curry.

[24] In 1995, she appeared in a film adaptation for television based on Danielle Steel's Zoya as Evgenia, the main character's grandmother.

In this BBC series, first aired in 2000, she played Gladys Mitchell's detective, Dame Beatrice Adela Le Strange Bradley, an eccentric old woman who worked for Scotland Yard as a pathologist.

She also appeared in the second series of Ricky Gervais's comedy Extras, alongside Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and in the 2006 film The Painted Veil, in which she played a nun.

[28] In 2013 she appeared in an episode of Doctor Who in a Victorian era–based story called The Crimson Horror alongside her daughter, Rachael Stirling, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman.

[35] During autumn 2019 Rigg was filming the role of Mrs Pumphrey at Broughton Hall, near Skipton, for All Creatures Great and Small.

She was also chancellor of the University of Stirling, a ceremonial rather than executive role,[6] and was succeeded by James Naughtie when her 10-year term of office ended on 31 July 2008.

[50][51][52][53] In 1999, Rigg was appointed as the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting professor of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine's College, Oxford; she held the post for one year.

[55] On 25 October 2015, to mark 50 years of Emma Peel, the British Film Institute screened an episode of The Avengers; this was followed by an onstage interview with Rigg about her time in the television series.