Ripley's early film and television appearances were limited, so she supplemented her earnings by working as a children's entertainer and by selling menswear door-to-door.
After her scenes as a prostitute were cut from Frankenstein (1994), Ripley gained her first major film role playing Karen Hughes in Mute Witness (1995).
After leaving Cold Feet, Ripley played a succession of leading roles in comedies and dramas including Green-Eyed Monster (2001), I Saw You (2002), The Stretford Wives (2002), and Dead Gorgeous (2002).
[1] Her father was a successful businessman – the son of Greater London Councilman Sydney William Leonard Ripley, J.P., D.L., whose family had owned a printing company that produced movie posters -[2][3] and brother of 1960s pop singer Twinkle, and her mother an antiques dealer.
[4] Her father wanted to send her to a finishing school in Switzerland but, in an effort to rebel from her middle class Home Counties background, Ripley instead went to a local state college in Surrey, where she took A-levels in communication studies, art, and drama.
Pleased with what looked like her breakout role, Ripley bought a dress for the premiere, though she was distraught when Branagh sent her a card apologising for cutting her scenes from the finished film.
[5] After Mute Witness's British television premiere in 1999, a Daily Record critic wrote that Ripley's dramatic scenes were not as good as her comic ones.
[16] In 1996, she had a role in Stephen Poliakoff's Frontiers, and played a club barmaid in Dennis Potter's penultimate television series Karaoke.
[19] After the pilot won an award, ITV's director of programmes commissioned a series of Cold Feet, so Ripley worked on improving her character's accent by speaking to locals and mimicking their speech.
[21] An Independent review of the first series in November 1998 noted, "Fay Ripley has a range of quirky mannerisms that are more reminiscent of Elaine in Seinfeld than of any other Brit-com woman.
[23] For her performance in the third series (2000), in which her character separates from her husband and dates another man (played by Ben Miles), she was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress.
In 2000, Ripley appeared in the British dogme film The Announcement,[5] as well as playing lead female character Grace Bingley—opposite Paul Rhys—in the Granada television pilot I Saw You, which used many of the same production staff as Cold Feet.
[6] Guardian critic Gareth McLean wrote of her performance, "Ripley did a good job of exorcising the ghost of Jenny Gifford [...] by coolly cranking up the insane desperation and needy malevolence to an impressive degree.
Ripley was initially not eager to play another character from around Manchester so soon after leaving Cold Feet, but she changed her mind after reading the script.
She did not research spousal abuse to play her character, a woman struggling to bring up her two children in a run-down house while her husband is imprisoned, because she did not find it difficult to "work out what it's like to be scared and want to protect your kids".
[29] Also in 2002, Ripley played Rose Bell in the ITV post-war period drama Dead Gorgeous, alongside Helen McCrory.
[31] In 2006, Ripley played the role of child abductor Linda Holder in the two-part ITV drama Bon Voyage, starring alongside Ben Miles, Rachael Blake and Daniel Ryan.
Her pregnancy also caused changes to the script; originally her character was to run through a forest, fall off a cliff and "die a gruesome death".
[33][34] In complimenting the performance of the whole cast, Brian McIver of the Daily Record praised Ripley's portrayal of Linda as "scary but sympathetic".
[36] As the series was Ripley's first studio sitcom, she approached the role with apprehension; she told The Independent on Sunday, "I basically just hung off Martin's coat-tails and hoped for the best.
"[37] Ripley compared Nicola to Reggie's house-bound wife Elizabeth in the original series, noting that the modern character needed a job and independence from her husband because of changes in society.
[44] The same year, she participated in a major advertising venture by The National Lottery, playing "Lady Luck" alongside a unicorn voiced by Graham Norton.
She said, "I want to help people prepare good food for their kids, really practical stuff that's easy, quick, healthy and you can whizz up in the blender for the baby.
"[48] Fay's Family Food was published by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books, in April 2009[49] and was selected by Marie-Claire Digby of The Irish Times as a "summer read".
In late 2022, Ripley made a return to the stage with The National Theatre's production of Kerry Jackson, in which she played the eponymous lead role.
[51] Ripley met English actor James Purefoy when the two were starring in the eponymous roles in a college production of Romeo and Juliet in 1983.
[56] Ripley also fronted a "Climate Action Now" protest with novelist Rebecca Frayn and actress Rula Lenska in 2008, opposing government support of the then planned third runway at Heathrow Airport.