For years, Olivia Colman worked as a cleaner to get by. Now she’s a household name.

Growing up, there was one thing Olivia Colman wished for more than anything. 

"Being able to put 'actor' on my passport was all I wanted in the world," she told Vogue. 

She was incredibly determined. 

"I remember my mum once said, 'I suppose you'll give it a year and see if you can make it as an actress?' And I said, 'No Mum, I think I'll give it 10," she told The Telegraph.

Watch the trailer for The Lost Daughter, starring Olivia Colman. Post continues below. 

In the years following, Colman would go on to forge an impressive career in Hollywood. One that has seen her play a plethora of roles from a detective to the Queen of England.

Here's a look back at the 48-year-old's rise to fame and life in the spotlight.

Olivia Colman’s start in acting and changing her name. 

Sarah Caroline Colman (as she was named at birth), grew up in Norfolk, England. 

When it came time to leave school, Colman enrolled in a teaching course at Homerton College in Cambridge. 

But she knew it wasn’t the gig for her. 

"I wasn’t terribly committed, and I would have been a terrible teacher," she told The Telegraph. 

It was here where she auditioned for the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club and met fellow students David Mitchell and Robert Webb, who she would go on to star alongside in the British TV series Peep Show years later. 

Determined to chase her acting dreams, she eventually quit the teaching course and decided to attend the Bristol Old Vic drama school.

To distinguish herself in the industry, she changed her birth name from Sarah to one now recognised all over the world. 

"One of my best friends at university was called Olivia and I always loved her name," she told the Independent about her decision to change her name.

"I was always called by my nickname, Colly, so it didn't seem so awful not to be called Sarah."

Like many, Colman quickly learnt success wouldn't come overnight. 

Instead, she found herself working as a cleaner and a secretary to get by. But she was "not a very good one," she told the Daily Mail.

"There were years of no work. It was a hard time."

Still, she persevered. 

In 2002, she landed her first role when Mitchell and Webb invited to audition for the BBC sketch show Bruiser. 

A series of smaller roles followed, including shows like The Office and People Like Us, before she scored her big break - a role on Peep Show in 2003. 

However, things took a turn when the actor starred in the UK film Confetti in 2006, which saw her and Webb play a couple planning their naturist wedding. 

Speaking to The Guardian in 2013, Colman said the film was "the worst experience of her life" and she felt "betrayed" by how much of her body was shown on screen. 

"The betrayal was how much was going to be seen and what was going to be pixelated.

"I didn't sleep for a year... It was horrible. My husband loves me, and I'm embarrassed showing him my body. I would not willingly show anybody my muff unless I'm married to them and I love them, and they love me." 

Olivia Colman, David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Sam Bain, Jessie Armstrong, Becky Martin and Robert Popper with their Best Situation Comedy award for "Peep Show" in 2008. Image: Jon Furniss/Wire Image.

In the years following, Colman has proven herself a versatile actor, landing roles in Doctor Who, Skins, Fleabag and as Carol Thatcher in the 2011 Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. 

In 2013, she won the best female in a comedy award for her role in the comedy series Twenty Twelve – and best supporting actress for the drama The Accused. 

Before long, she would have to make way for a host of other awards on her mantle, including another BAFTA for her role in Broadchurch in 2014, her first Golden Globe for the mini-series The Night Manager in 2017, and an Oscar for The Favourite in 2019, which saw her deliver a hilarious impromptu speech on-stage.

"I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be me," she later told ABC News.

"I would have put money on Glenn [Close]." 

Colman later went on to win a Golden Globe for The Crown in 2020 where she played Queen Elizabeth II. 

The 48-year-old was an enormous fan of the show before landing the role.

"I was doing what everyone else was doing — sort of binge-watching it. So when the call came for that, it was a very uncool 'Yes, please!' straight away, immediately, without really considering that joining something which is so successful is a bit of a pressure, because what if you're the one that f****s it up?" she told The Hollywood Reporter.

"But I know I'm going to be employed for two years, which is a very nice feeling when you've got dependents and a mortgage and bills to pay."

Olivia Colman posing with her Golden Globe for The Crown in 2020. Image: George Pimentel/Wire Image/Getty.

More recently Colman, who has been made a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, was nominated for an Oscar in the 2021 psychological drama The Lost Daughter. 

Speaking to Insider about her time working on the film, Colman said "[the cast] got on so well, which is lucky, because we were on an island and literally couldn't escape each other."

"We spent the evenings listening to guitar, we drank, and we forgot to learn our lines for the next day. And it was fine!"

Olivia Colman’s marriage to Ed Sinclair.

Colman met her husband when they were both cast in a stage production of Alan Ayckbourn's Table Manners at Cambridge.

For a then 20-year-old Colman, it was love at first sight. 

"When he walked into the room, I just went, 'That’s him!' she told The Telegraph. "Mind you, I suppose if he hadn’t wanted me, then I might have gone, ‘That’s him!’ at someone else a week later.

"For me it was thunderbolts straight away."

Sinclair, on the other hand, felt "completely bamboozled by the whole thing," she said. 

"He kept wondering why this jolly, smiley person kept turning and laughing hysterically at everything he did." 

Still, the pair hit it off and married in 2001. 

In the years since, Colman and Sinclair, who works as a writer, actor and producer, have kept their relationship out of the spotlight. 

But Colman did share what it was like working with her husband on the 2021 series Landscapers, which he created. 

"We now know that I do my thing and he does his, and we are not allowed to talk about it," she told The Graham Norton Show.

"He tried to give me a note once which went down like a cup of cold sick!" 

Olivia Colman and Ed Sinclair at the 2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party. Image: Karwai Tang/Getty.

Olivia Colman’s three kids. 

Much like her marriage to Sinclair, Colman keeps her family life out of the public eye. 

We know that the couple share three children together; two sons named Finn, born in 2005, and Hall born in 2007, and a daughter born in 2015, whose name they have never publicly released.

Colman was cast to star in the BBC spy thriller series The Night Manager while pregnant with her daughter. 

"I just can’t retain my lines like I normally would," she told Radio Times. "I’ve got a bit of nappy brain going on. There are an awful lot of script changes that happen. It can change the day before, on the day.

"It fills me with fear: ‘Oh Christ, I’ve barely got the script in my head and now I’ve got to change it.’ So it is a little bit hanging by my fingernails."

Colman said working on The Lost Daughter, which explores the concept of motherhood through the lens of a college professor, Colman said it made her feel less alone in the struggles of parenting. 

"It's interesting to find out that you're not alone," The Crown actor told Insider. 

"My family, I would die for them. But when they were smaller and I was exhausted, I had those moments of, 'Just leave me alone for a minute' or 'Put the telly on' – which I disagreed with, but (to hell with) it sometimes. And you felt bad, because you were that mummy who was trying to sleep on the floor." 

Colman also took a brief moment to mention her kids when she shouted them out during her 2019 Oscar speech. 

"If you’re not [watching from home], then, you know, well done, but this isn’t going to happen again," she joked.

However, looking back at her successful career, we very much doubt that will be the case. 

Feature Image: Getty/Netflix/BBC/Channel 4/ITV/Mamamia.