[1][2] Her mother, Ann (née Morgans), is a Welsh physiotherapist,[3] and her father, Iain McCrory (born 29 March 1940), is a diplomat from Glasgow; they were married in 1968.

[9] In 2002, she was nominated for a London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress (for playing Elena in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya at the Donmar Warehouse).

[11] She appeared in Charles II: The Power and The Passion (2003), as Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and in supporting roles in such films as Interview with the Vampire (1994), Charlotte Gray (2001), The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) and Casanova (2005).

In the critically acclaimed film The Queen (2006), she played Cherie Blair, a role she reprised in Peter Morgan's follow-up The Special Relationship (2010).

In 2006, her first pregnancy forced her to pull out of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), in which she had been cast as Bellatrix Lestrange (she was replaced by Helena Bonham Carter).

[8] McCrory starred in The Last of the Haussmans alongside Julie Walters and Rory Kinnear at the Royal National Theatre, which began 12 June 2012.

[19] McCrory was confirmed to play the lead role, human-rights lawyer Emma Banville, in six-part ITV drama series Fearless, which aired in June 2017.

[22] In 2020, she played Sonia Woodley QC in the ITV drama Quiz, which received a large audience while it was on the air during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns with the first episode seen live by an average of 5.3 million viewers in the UK.

[25] In her final television performance, she starred as Prime Minister Dawn Ellison in the BBC four-part drama Roadkill, which aired in October 2020.

[32] In 2022, Lewis received a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) partially for their charity work with the NHS, which he shared with McCrory by posting to Twitter with the hashtag #CBESharingItWithHelen and telling the PA news agency "She and I are both thrilled".

[33] McCrory was also an ambassador with the charity The Prince's Trust, which she spoke about on Good Morning Britain in her final public appearance in March 2021.

[37][38][39] Announcing the death on Twitter, husband Damian Lewis stated that she had died "peacefully at home, surrounded by a wave of love from friends and family.