Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström (born October 19, 1983 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish actress.
Her father is Swedish and her mother English, she was raised bilingual. She has a son due to her past relationship with then-boyfriend Ludwig Hallberg. In 2018, she gave birth to a daughter with her new partner. She announced the pair had married in 2019, although only his first name (Rory) has been revealed yet.
Born to a British mother, she grew up and graduated from school in Stockholm. Her first acting experience at the age of 15 was her role in the Swedish TV series Nya tider, leading to a role in the American TV series Ocean Ave. After participating in the BBC series The White Queen, Ferguson soon gained international attention. Her most famous role to date is Ilsa Faust in the Mission: Impossible film series, making her debut in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.
Not to be confused with the English singer of the same name.
Selected filmography:
- Nya tider (1999 – 2002) as Anna Gripenhielm
- The Drowning Ghost (2004) as Amanda
- Wallander (2008) as Louise Fredman (episode: "Sidetracked")
- The White Queen (2013) as Queen Elizabeth Woodville
- Hercules (2014) as Ergenia
- The Red Tent (2014) as Dinah
- Mission: Impossible Film Series as Ilsa Faust:
- Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)
- Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)
- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning (2023)
- Mission: Impossible 8 (2025)
- Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) as Kathleen
- The Girl on the Train (2016) as Anna
- Life (2017) as Dr. Miranda North
- The Snowman (2017) as Katrine Bratt
- The Greatest Showman (2017) as Jenny Lind
- The Kid Who Would Be King (2019) as Morgana le Fay
- Men in Black: International (2019) as Riza
- Doctor Sleep (2019) as Rose the Hat
- Reminiscence (2021) as Mae
- Dune as Lady Jessica
- Dune: Part One (2021)
- Dune: Part Two (2024)
- Silo (2023) as Juliette Nichols
Tropes associated with the creator's roles:
- Hostility on the Set: Ferguson revealed in a 2024 interview with the Reign with Josh Smith podcast she'd worked with an actor who became irate during filming and "screamed" and hurled insults at her when she tried to speak up about it; Ferguson stated she was reduced to tears and felt no one on set had her back because of the actor's prominence. She eventually got so fed up with the behaviour she told the actor to "fuck off" and insisted on filming the rest of the scene facing the back of their head (and would've finished filming without sharing the set with them if it had been allowed). It was bad enough she stated she'd never work with the actor again and referred to them as "an absolute idiot". Ferguson didn't reveal who the actor was or what movie she'd been filming at the time, only saying the movie was made in the "last 10 or 12 years" and that the actor wasn't Hugh Jackman or Tom Cruise.
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: In Doctor Sleep, while filming a scene of her character torturing a young boy, the child actor's screams sounded so realistic to her that she immediately started sobbing.
- Ms. Fanservice: Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation gives her scenes in a bikini and her underwear.
- Non-Singing Voice: While she's certainly capable of carrying a tune, she was doubled by professional singer-songwriter Loren Allred in The Greatest Showman because she was playing Jenny Lind, the best singer in the world. She did however sing "Never Enough" live on set, and did so well enough that the audience's enthusiastic reaction was not at all faked.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: Has stated that she “selfishly love(s) going barefoot” and her films often work this trait into her characters, including Ilsa Faust, Rose the Hat, Riza, Morgana and Jessica.
- Star-Making Role: Her starring role as Elizabeth Woodville in the popular miniseries The White Queen brought her a great deal of attention, with her role as Ilsa in Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation two years later cementing her prominence.
