---
name: "Sarah Smart"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/sarah-smart"
fi1m_id: "sarah-smart"
imdb_id: "nm0806699"
tmdb_id: 185459
wikidata_id: "Q513865"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "3 March 1977"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 3
average_fi1m_score: 74
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 3
updated: "2026-10-07T14:54:43.893385+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Sarah Smart

## Identity

Sarah Smart

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/sarah-smart
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** sarah-smart
- **IMDb ID:** nm0806699
- **TMDB ID:** 185459
- **Wikidata ID:** Q513865
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Smart, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q513865, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806699/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/185459

Actor. Born 3 March 1977 in Birmingham, England, UK.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 3 March 1977, Birmingham, England, UK
- **Active:** 2000–2008
- **Also known as:** سارا اسمارت
- **Average Fi1m score:** 74, as actor, over 3 titles
- **Score spread:** 0 at 80+, 3 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Lead roles:** 0 of 3 acting credits billed first or second
- **Genres:** Drama 3, Crime 2, Comedy 1, Mystery 1
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Smart, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q513865, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0806699/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/185459

## Streaming the US now

- **Apple TV:** [*Wallander*](https://film.one/tv/wallander.md) (76)
- **HBO Max:** [*Five Days*](https://film.one/tv/five-days.md) (76)
- **BritBox:** [*At Home with the Braithwaites*](https://film.one/tv/at-home-with-the-braithwaites.md) (71)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Sarah Smart

> Sarah Smart plays wanting without announcing it: a girl forever in the wrong garden, a detective at the next desk. Sally Wainwright wrote her the part that made her, and the crime series since have used her well without asking as much.

Watch how often Virginia Braithwaite ends up in the garden next door. There is always a reason, something borrowed to give back, a question that could have waited, and Sarah Smart plays each one as if she half believes it herself. Her Virginia is in love with Megan Hartnoll, and everything we know about it comes from where she looks and where she chooses to stand. Sally Wainwright wrote the crush as a crush rather than an issue, and Smart was the right actor for that. She does not plead with the audience. She just keeps finding excuses to be in that garden.

It was the part that made her, and she has said so. She started young, in children's television on ITV in the early 1990s, then spent years as the girlfriend in other people's stories. "For ages I was just playing people’s girlfriends, but then Virginia in Braithwaites changed all that. I thought ‘I really like playing quirky characters’," she told the Birmingham Mail in 2012. Wainwright plainly agreed. She wrote her Carol Bolton in *Sparkhouse* (2002), a Heathcliff with the sexes swapped in a modern *Wuthering Heights*, and then the title role in *Jane Hall* (2006). Three parts from one writer is a proper working relationship, and it is the one that has done most for her.

Since then British television has mostly decided she is a detective. She was Anne-Britt Höglund across the nine BBC *Wallander* films (2008–2012), the colleague at the next desk to Kenneth Branagh, and she has passed through *Death in Paradise* (2011), *New Tricks* (2012), *The Musketeers* (2014), *The Chelsea Detective* (2022) and *Father Brown* (2023). We have not reviewed those and will not pretend to. The exception worth a look is *Doctor Who* (2011), where she played Jennifer Lucas and the copy of Jennifer Lucas, which is at least a part with something in it to play. "Reliable" is the word that follows her through this stretch, and reliable is what you call an actor nobody has written a lead for lately.

What stays with us is still the Braithwaites, and the reason is specific. A daughter's crush on the married woman next door, in a comedy about a lottery win, could have been played for farce or for a lesson. Smart and Julie Graham play it as two people being careful with each other, and it moved us more than we expected the show to manage, because nobody on screen made a speech about it. The later series ran short of secret and reached for incident, and the daughters, Smart included, were where that showed. Start with the first two. Then wait, as we are, for somebody other than Wainwright to work out what she can do.

## Biography

Sarah Smart is an English actress. Born on 3 March 1977 in Birmingham, she began her career as a child actor in the television series *Woof!*.

She played Virginia Braithwaite in the comedy drama *At Home with the Braithwaites* (2000–2003). She has appeared in several productions written by Sally Wainwright, including *Sparkhouse* (2002) and *Jane Hall* (2006). Between 2008 and 2012 she played Anne-Britt Höglund in the BBC adaptations of Henning Mankell's *Wallander* novels. Other television credits include episodes of *Doctor Who* (2011), *Midsomer Murders*, *Death in Paradise*, *The Musketeers* and *Father Brown*.

Her mother is the scriptwriter Pat Smart.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (3)

- *Wallander* (2008), Fi1m 76, as Anne-Britt Hoglund — [page](https://film.one/tv/wallander.md)
- *Five Days* (2007), Fi1m 76, as Sarah Wheeler — [page](https://film.one/tv/five-days.md)
- *At Home with the Braithwaites* (2000), Fi1m 71, as Virginia Braithwaite — [page](https://film.one/tv/at-home-with-the-braithwaites.md)

## Complete filmography (38)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Chelsea Detective* (2022), series, as Siobhan O'Hara — Fi1m 70, [page](https://film.one/tv/the-chelsea-detective.md)
- *Delicious* (2016), series, as Anna
- *Safe House* (2015), series, as Megan
- *Give* (2014), as Kate / Sally
- *The Musketeers* (2014), series, as Caroline
- *Father Brown* (2013), series, as Ms Amanda Clement
- *The Secret of Crickley Hall* (2012), series, as Magda Cribben
- *Playhouse Presents* (2012), series, as Mona
- *Secrets and Words* (2012), series, as Naomi
- *Fast Freddie, the Widow and Me* (2011), as Laura Cooper
- *Death in Paradise* (2011), series, as Suzie Park
- *The Man who Crossed Hitler* (2011), as Margot Furst
- *Identity* (2010), series, Actor
- *Wallander* (2008), series, as Anne-Britt Hoglund — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/wallander.md)
- *Casualty 1900s* (2008), series, as Ada Russell
- *Fairy Tales* (2008), series, as Carol Gruff
- *The Yellow House* (2007), as Rachel
- *Five Days* (2007), series, as Sarah Wheeler — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/five-days.md)
- *Jane Hall* (2006), series, as Jane Hall
- *Funland* (2005), series, as Lola Sutton
- *Doctor Who* (2005), series, as Jennifer — Fi1m 78, [page](https://film.one/tv/doctor-who-2005.md)
- *Agatha Christie's Marple* (2004), series, as Mildred
- *Murder Prevention* (2004), series, as DC Karen Hughes
- *New Tricks* (2004), series, as Catherine Green
- *Sparkhouse* (2002), series, as Carol Bolton
- *David Copperfield* (2001), as Clara Copperfield
- *Sweet Revenge* (2001), series, as Lisa Craig
- *David Copperfield* (2000), series, as Clara Copperfield
- *Urban Gothic* (2000), series, as Claire
- *At Home with the Braithwaites* (2000), series, as Virginia Braithwaite — Fi1m 71, [page](https://film.one/tv/at-home-with-the-braithwaites.md)
- *Wuthering Heights* (1998), as Catherine Linton
- *Midsomer Murders* (1997), series, as Jo Starling — Fi1m 66, [page](https://film.one/tv/midsomer-murders.md)
- *Backup* (1995), series, Actor
- *Harry's Mad* (1993), series, Actor
- *A Touch of Frost* (1992), series, as Carol Stansfield — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/tv/a-touch-of-frost.md)
- *Ball-Trap On The Cote Sauvage* (1989), as Nadine
- *Agatha Christie's Poirot* (1989), series, as Maude — Fi1m 83, [page](https://film.one/tv/agatha-christies-poirot.md)
- *Woof!* (1988), series, as Rachel Hobbs

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/sarah-smart