Olivia Colman played a mother — and thus the form of Prisoner Zero at the climax — in the Doctor Who television story The Eleventh Hour. She also read the audiobook version of The Forgotten Army.
In 2007 she appeared in Hot Fuzz, alongside David Bradley, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Nick Frost, Bill Nighy, and Simon Pegg.
In 2014, she became a series regular on Thomas & Friends, voicing the character of Marion, and has appeared in the show alongside other notable DW actors such as John Hurt and Eddie Redmayne.
In 2016 she played the key role of Angela Burr in the TV miniseries adaptation of John Le Carre's The Night Manager, with David Harewood, Douglas Hodge, Katherine Kelly, Tobias Menzies, and Alistair Petrie. Similar to Jodie Whittaker, the part she played was originally written for a man.
After co-starring with David Tennant and Whittaker in Chris Chibnall's 2017 crime drama, Broadchurch, she appeared as herself in the 50th anniversary story The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.
She was miscredited as Olivia Coleman in The Eleventh Hour credits sequence.
In 2019, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Favourite, making her one of the few Oscar winners to have appeared on Doctor Who. She was the first to win after appearing in the series.