Most people wait half their lives to find out who they are. But there are a lucky few who know themselves early on; know exactly who they want to be; know exactly what they want to do. For these individuals, the path is set, the way is clear, and the only obstacle is their own ability to move towards a future that seems all but promised to them.

There on that path is Lauren McQueen, as sincere as a prayer. She’s known exactly who she wanted to be since she was a young child, recreating scenes from Annie. Quite literally singing and dancing through life from “as young as I can remember,” as she says with a smile. It seems like a career as an actor was predestined. And, if her career thus far offers any metric for destiny, the life she’s living was absolutely foretold.

McQueen has amassed quite the array of roles over the course of her nearly 15-year career, one that began with parts in smaller television shows and the occasional indie flick and has become especially fruitful of late. In the last few years, the 29-year-old Liverpudlian booked the role of Rose in John Orloff’s Masters of the Air, appeared alongside Tom Hanks in the 2024 film Here, and played the maid, Nell, in Belgravia: The Next Chapter. Her most recent role has her gliding around meticulously crafted 12th century royal courts and under the lush canopies of Serbian forests as Marian of Huntingdon in MGM+’s Robin Hood, the first season of which premiered in November.

Robin Hood is a classic fable, one that’s been reimagined and retold innumerable times, and one that will likely be redone a thousand times more. It’s the perfect, stirring tale: a dashing, do-gooding hero steals from the rich and corrupt and gives to the poor and deserving, all while sweeping the beautiful, virtuous, doe-eyed Maid Marian happily off her feet.

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In past versions of the story, Maid Marian has existed solely in relation to Robin Hood. Her journey, ambitions, and actions are bound to him; who she is is indistinguishable in the long reach of his great shadow. But not McQueen’s Marian. Far from the saccharine, defenseless maidens of past adaptations, this new Marian has interiority. “She has a lot of warmth and heart in the show, although she’s had this sheltered and very abusive upbringing,” says McQueen. “I love that the writers haven’t shied away from giving her that inner strength. She’s not a damsel in distress.” This Marian is a soldier, forged in the cold, dark recesses of her violent father’s house and armed with the greatest weapons one can have: judicious words, a razor-sharp mind, and an endless well of empathy.

It’s a role McQueen plays to perfection, even though nine centuries of changing political and social landscapes stretch between her and Marian. One would think it an insurmountable distance, but McQueen says it felt easy to reach for her due to Marian’s “growth as a woman” during the series. “Her finding her own voice and her own confidence is something that I’ve worked on in the past. Finding my own self-belief, that vital journey of womanhood, falling in love for the first time, and dealing with heartbreak—that’s something that I could relate to,” says McQueen. It’s something audiences can relate to as well, especially when watching those experiences being performed by someone as masterful and believable in their delivery as McQueen.

It helps that McQueen is no stranger to playing complex characters. Her first film role, Helen Walsh’s 2015 project titled The Violators, saw her playing the dysfunctional foster kid Shelly, while her character on the British soap Hollyoaks, Lily Drinkwell, underwent a self-harm arc that ended in her death after 160 episodes on the show. Much more recently, she plays the sex worker Seema in Outlander: Blood of my Blood, a character with issues so far removed from McQueen’s life that she deemed it her most difficult role to date. “I have a really strong storyline with the characters Julia and Henry in season two, and they were the most intense and challenging scenes I’ve probably ever had to do,” says McQueen.

But while the characters she plays are often enduring life’s most difficult battles, there’s so much joy to be rooted out from the experience of playing them, joy that McQueen often remembers through physical objects. “I do always try to take a little object [from set],” she readily confesses. She’s got a framed sketch of one of Marian’s costumes, painted by the show’s costume designer and gifted to her by Jack Patten and Erica Ford, who play Robin Hood and Ralph, respectively. And some lucky Liverpudlians are unknowingly in possession of Lily Drinkwell’s clothes after McQueen, who took half of her character’s wardrobe home after her character’s exit from Hollyoaks, donated them all to a local charity shop after realizing that they weren’t actually her style at all.

McQueen also writes diary entries in character, a practice that helped her more deeply understand the lady of Huntingdon. “For the first time when Marian meets Rob, I’d go back home and write a little diary entry of what that felt like for her. It almost takes you back and feels like you’re being a little girl again writing all your thoughts and your little secrets into a book,” McQueen giggles at the thought. “But it’s really helpful, because we don’t shoot in sequence, so you can then flick back and kind of think, ‘Oh, well, how did she feel at this point, and what was going on in her head? What did she want to tell her diary that she didn’t want to tell anyone else?’”

Any physical collection isn’t complete without the memories and lessons attached to it, and the last year alone has been filled with them. She’ll be the first to tell you now that you can never predict what a horse is going to do on set, a lesson she learned deep in a Serbian forest. While filming a particularly tense scene between the Normans and Saxons, the horse she was on top of decided that it was quite done with filming and simply reversed out of the scene. “I don’t even know if anybody realized that I was gone, apart from Lydia [Peckham], who plays Priscilla,” McQueen laughs. “And she said, she just looked to her right, and I just suddenly disappeared. I was halfway up the path trying to get everyone’s attention.” There’s a fondness in her voice when she speaks about the six months spent filming Robin Hood that makes it clear that it was the experience of a lifetime, confirmed by the ear-to-ear grins in Instagram posts with her castmates.

Her personal life is coming up roses, too. She’s just bought her first house in her hometown of Liverpool, where she spends time with relatives, friends, and her family’s rescued Frenchie. She goes to pilates and tap classes, and attempts to get near the sea—the place she feels calmest—as much as possible. When she’s not on set somewhere herself, she’s teaching acting workshops to children and adults alike, a pastime she says is a “really rewarding thing to do, to give back and share experiences.”

And what experiences she’s had! What experiences to come! For a young star like McQueen, anything is possible. Perhaps that’s why, when asked what’s next for her, McQueen hems and haws a bit. It’s not for a lack of will or imagination, quite the opposite, really. There’s just so much she wants to do. She’s an admirer of Emma Stone and her quirky, wide-ranging filmography—“They’re such interesting roles. She’s had a career that’s so versatile, so I really look up to her,” McQueen enthuses—and really of any actor who shows their range. She wants to do it all, to be known as someone who can cover the full spectrum of thespianism, and then some. Mainly, McQueen doesn’t want to be put in a box, or be known as someone comfortable in a singular type of role. Of course not—she’s not someone that could be put in a box. She’s a collector, not one to be collected.

So what’s next for Lauren McQueen? Well, everything of course. Season two of Robin Hood is confirmed, but beyond that…“I’m really hungry to explore the world of film,” she confesses. She’d like to be in the Bond franchise, or a movie musical. And why not? It’s a new day, and the sun is spilling up over the horizon. The shelves of her mind are cleaned and dusted, ready for the next set in the collection. Her fingers itch to gather up the next role in her eager hands and spin it into something new. The path has been clear to her for years, the way is set and polished by years of endurance and experience—now all that remains is to keep going.

Photographed by Jack Beere

Styled by Aartthie Mahakuperan

Written by Maddy Brown

Hair: Sofia Sjoo

Makeup: Sara Hill at The Wall Group

Photo Assistant: Chloe Hunkin

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