Joanne Thomson is an award-winning Actor, Writer and Director from Glasgow, Scotland.
 

Since graduating with a BA in Acting from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland she has also trained with the Groundlings Improv School in Los Angeles and the National Film and Television School on John Yorke’s TV Writer’s Academy.

She has worked extensively across the UK as an actor and has directed internationally award-winning theatre.

Her theatre credits as an actor include work with the National Theatre of Scotland, Bristol Old Vic, Citizens Theatre,  Birmingham Rep, Royal Lyceum, Traverse and the legendary Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

 

In 2022 it was announced that Joanne had been cast as new recurring character Amy McCallum in Season 6 of OUTLANDER with Sony/Starz before going on to join the cast of Synchronicity and CAA's latest feature film Kill. Prior to this, she played DS Lisa Harvey in BBC One’s BAFTA-nominated drama THE VICTIM, and her performance in ITV’s BAFTA-nominated IN PLAIN SIGHT won her 2 Best Actress nominations at the IARA awards.

 

In 2019, she starred in BBC’s prime-time drama THE SUFFRAGETTES which won a BAFTA that same year. She most recently appeared in Brian Cox's directorial debut GLENROTHAN, Season 8 of OUTLANDER, Season 10 of SHETLAND, and the internationally award-winning short film IN THE ROOM, which won her the Best Actress award at the FP Film Festival.
 

A BAFTA LA Newcomer, Glasgow Film Festival New Talent & one of the Traverse Theatre’s Breakthrough Writers, her writing has placed in several Screencraft competitions, made the BBC Writer ’ s Room Top 2%, Olivia Colman’s South of the River & Sister’s Commendation List & Moonshot's Pilot Accelerator in association with Netflix & HBO. Her passion lies in telling darkly comic stories with themes of queerness, sex positivity and abuse of power bubbling underneath.

 

Her queer, women-led pilot SPINNER & MARIE also won C21’s coveted Screenwriting Award at Content London in 2021. She was since brought on to write award-winning short GLASGOW TOWN for Blazing Griffin starring Taggart’s Blythe Duff and directed by BAFTA-winning director Michael J Ferns.

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Her film ON THE TWELFTH DAY OF FINDOM which she wrote and co-directed, was shortlisted for the British Short Film Awards, and won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Short. It was nominated at several film festivals including Women X, Sunderland Film Festival, Oslo SFF, and 2026's Glasgow Short Film Festival in the Scottish Competition. Joanne is currently in pre-production to direct the Creative Scotland-backed short film SHEPHERD, and was recently brought on to co-write short film I BEFORE E, cast by Des Hamilton and exec produced by Ken Loach's Sixteen Films.

 

Her debut play JACK IN A BOX was recently shortlisted for both the St Andrews Playwriting Award and Theatre 503’s International Playwriting Award before being chosen for The Royal Shakespeare Company's 37 Plays project. It was selected to form part of Shedinburgh's programme at the 2025 Edinbugh Fringe, produced by Francesca Moody Productions (Fleabag, Baby Reindeer).

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She's proud of all of the above but frankly f**king exhausted, so when things get too much you'll find her playing Pharaoh, the 1997 Egyptian city-building game. Her pyramid has 6 layers right now and she's very excited.

She also definitely didn't write this herself in the third-person.