Zoe Wanamaker built her fame as an actress through her role in the 11 season-long series, My Family. Coming from a family of actors, with her mom and dad both in the business, one would think Wanamaker was encouraged to go into it herself. But she struggled a lot with reading and writing in school, and even had difficulty reading scripts for early plays and performances, even though the arts had become a comfort to the struggling student. Reading and writing would continue to prove difficult for her throughout her life, but Wanamaker wouldn’t know why until well into adulthood.

After high school Wanamaker tried hard not to be an actress, and instead enrolled in an art school; but art was too isolating for her. She wanted to be engaged and actively performing, and eventually committed herself to being an actress. The fear of not being able to memorize lines was still present though, so Wanamaker’s parents suggested she get a fallback job to ensure a bit of financial security. As a result, Wanamaker took a typing job that soon proved to be very difficult for her because of her dyslexia, which was still undiagnosed at the time. The more that Wanamaker immersed herself in the acting world, the more she realized she would have to work twice as hard as others in order to memorize lines. She noticed that others didn’t have the same amount of difficulty with reading as she did, and retained the words on the page much quicker, too. She learned that she memorized lines best orally, when someone else read it outloud to her. Wanamaker never thought that dyslexia was what was causing her reading difficulties, and it wasn’t until 2006 that she was diagnosed. Once aware of her dyslexia, Wanamaker began to speak out about the learning disability and even joined the list of Dyslexia Action’s Ambassadors.

Learn more about Zoe Wanamaker and her acting career here at the Telegraph.

Zoe Wanamaker filmography on IMDB