Haydn Gwynne was fluent in French and Italian. She studied Modern Languages at the University of Warwick before taking a five-year lectureship in Italy, where she taught English. She also drove across the United States before becoming an actress in her mid-twenties. She first came to notice on television as starring in the David Lodge campus comedy/drama Nice Work (1989), before joining the sharp comedy series set in a television newsroom, Drop the Dead Donkey (1990). She was known for her roles in the medical series Peak Practice (1993) and the police drama Merseybeat (2001), but later played in the stage musicals 'Billy Elliot' and 'Ziegfeld'. She lived in London with her partner Jason Phipps, a psychotherapist, and their two sons, Orlando and Harry. Offscreen, she volunteered for Sightsavers, a group committed to combating blindness in under-developed countries.