“A richer life for me would be to be surrounded by the people that I love, to have a world that is tolerant and enjoys all different kinds of diversity and for people to be in harmony with nature.”
An actor and LGBTQ+ ally.
Jill Nalder was brought up in Neath, Wales, but moved to London in 1980 to pursue her dream of studying drama at the Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts. Upon graduating in 1982, Jill performed in a number of West End productions, including as Madame Thenardier in Les Misérables at the Palace Theatre, and as a member of the original 1994 cast of Sam Mendes’ production of Oliver! at the London Palladium.
In 2021, Jill starred in It’s a Sin, a television series based on Jill’s life in the 1980s during the HIV/AIDS pandemic. A number of her close friends were affected by the illness, and Jill was a loyal ally, supporting them by taking them for tests and visiting them in hospital. She also helped to found West End Cares, a charity which raised money for AIDS research by putting on cabaret shows and late-night performances of full West End shows. In its first few years of operation the charity raised over £2 million and in its current incarnation, as Theatre MAD, it has now raised approximately £14 million.
Jill lost three of her closest friends to HIV/AIDS and is passionate about raising awareness about the illness and the history of the pandemic. In It’s A Sin, which was written by her close friend Russell Davies, Jill plays Christine Baxter, the mother of a character based on Jill herself.