Beatrice Eleanor Margaret Fitzallan (born 21 August 1987) is an English actress. She is most notably known for her role as Margaery Tyrell on the HBO series Game of Thrones (2012-16). Fitzallan's feature film debut was in the 2005 film adaptation of Pride & Prejudice, though her first leading role on film would not come until the 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre. In 2008, Fitzallan made her Broadway debut in a revival of Chekhov's The Seagull to critical acclaim. Fitzallan is widely known for appearing exclusively in period or fantasy pieces.

early life and career Fitzallan was born in Belgravia, London, the daughter of Henry Fitzallan, CEO of Fitzallan's Brewery, and Helena Spencer, a socialite and senior director of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby's London. She has three older siblings: Charles, Christopher (known professionally as Warric Fitzallan, lead vocalist with the band Triomphe), and Victoria. She and her siblings boarded at Marlborough College, where Fitzallan participated heavily in the drama department as a set painter and played tennis. She has described her childhood as "idyllic", if somewhat uneventful, as she was "painfully well behaved" and never had much of a wild streak (unlike her oldest brother who, along with a handful of other teenagers in the high society circle, was involved in a very public drug sting in 1997). Before breaking into the entertainment industry, Fitzallan had intended to attend university for History of Art with dreams of becoming a museum curator, and had accepted an offer to study at Oxford when her first role came along.

Fitzallan's feature film debut in Pride & Prejudice has been described by the actress as a "happy accident." A good friend of Fitzallan's father who worked in casting for the film recommended that she come in and read for the part of Kitty after the previously tapped actress had to pull out due to scheduling conflicts, and a few screen tests later she was given the part. Prior to the role, Fitzallan had only acted very briefly in choral roles in various school productions having preferred to work behind the scenes, and she was surprised to find how much she enjoyed it. Over the next few years, she found herself with a handful of other supporting roles, all of them period pieces. When asked about why she shied away from contemporary works, she mentions how she's been given the opportunity as an actress to wear someone else's skin, and it seemed a waste to take a role that didn't allow her some creativity and glimpse into another world.

2007 was a turning point for her career - albeit slowly. She appeared onstage in a revival of Chekhov's The Seagull as Nina to widespread acclaim, with critics praising how "radiating" and "affecting" she was. She stayed with the production when it transferred to Broadway in 2008, winning a nomination for a Drama Desk Award, although she ultimately lost to Angela Lansbury. 2011 saw her first leading role on film in Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of Jane Eyre, a role she said she fought "tooth and nail" for, as the novel had been a favourite of hers growing up. That same year, she returned to the stage in the off-Broadway adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly. Fitzallan played the central character, a mentally unstable woman recently released from an asylum following treatment for schizophrenia.

Arguably her most notable role came in 2012, when she joined the cast of Game of Thrones as queen-to-be Margaery Tyrell. The widespread success of the show catapulted her star power, opening the door for auditions she has insisted she would not have gotten otherwise; 2015's Suffragette and 2016's The Light Between Oceans being chief among them, in her own opinion. She auditioned for the role of Lady Macbeth in the 2015 adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, but did not make it past a preliminary audition; the casting directors liked her enough, however, to bring her back to read for Lady Macduff, a part she eventually won. She recently wrapped production on Paul-Henri Popesco's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword as Guinevere, and is in talks to star in a biopic on the Russian emperor Catherine the Great.

personal life Fitzallan is regularly seen with fellow Brits Minna Marks, Erikka Clarke, and Fiona Polson, all of whom she has described as her "platonic lifemates" at varying points over the years.

Fitzallan was in a relationship with American actor Brandon Rucco from 2013-2014; Tumblr went particularly crazy for them given their 'odd couple' pairing, but the relationship ended poorly (the actor's drug use is rumoured to be the reason behind the split, but neither camp has confirmed or denied this). Fitzallan did not react well to the split being brought up in interviews, and furiously stormed out of an interview at a Comic Con panel when the interviewer continued to press the issue. She has since stated that she finds speculation about her relationships "oddly amusing" and was particularly flattered when the media linked her to Prince Harry in 2015 (whom, she recently mentioned she has met only once or twice at industry events and that it was "so brief I doubt he remembers who I am").

During the massive entertainment hack in 2014, rumours swirled that nude photographs and explicit emails of Fitzallan's had been leaked; this caused a spike in Google searches of her, particularly given who she was in a relationship with at the time, though the rumours proved fruitless as no such photographs or emails existed and she fell back into comfortable near-anonymity.

Fitzallan currently resides with her older brother Christopher in Kensington, London, and in early 2015 purchased a flat in SoHo, New York City with playwright Amelia Graham. She previously owned a residence in Los Angeles that she purchased when she was still dating Rucco, but sold it a few months after their split was confirmed.