Daughter of television writer Pat Dunlop, she began her career as a child actress in the 1970s featuring in a BBC version of the classic A Little Princess and as Lydia Holly in the ITV adaptation of South Riding.
She studied at the Arts Educational Schools[2] Her transition to adult roles began by playing Lizzie Hexam in a BBC version of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend in 1976 and featuring in the very first series of the long-running hospital drama Angels.
Dunlop was cast alongside Diana Rigg and Elizabeth Taylor in the film version of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music (1977), and appeared in Roman Polanski's Tess (1979).
In the 1990s she starred in the long-running BBC sitcom May to December[5] as Zoe Callender alongside on-screen husband Anton Rodgers, replacing Eve Matheson in the role from the series two Christmas special onwards.
In 1995, Dunlop starred in the two part Gurinder Chadha directed drama Rich Deceiver as Ellie Freeman, a Liverpudlian housewife who secretly wins the pools and uses the money to covertly help her husband's career.