Imogen Stubbs was born in Northumberland, lived briefly in Portsmouth, where her father was a naval officer, and then moved with her parents to London, where they inhabited an elderly river barge on the Thames.

Educated at St Paul's Girls' School and then Westminster School, where she was one of the "token girls" in the Sixth Form, she went on to Exeter College, Oxford, where she gained a First Class degree.

She graduated from RADA in the same class as Jane Horrocks and Iain Glen. She has since become an Associate Member of RADA. She achieved success on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, notable as Desdemona in "Othello", which was directed by Trevor Nunn, now her husband and the father of her daughter Ellie and son, Jesse.

Additional stage work includes "St. Joan" at the Strand Theatre and "Heartbreak House" at the Haymarket and in Jessica Lange's London production of "A Streetcar Named Desire" in 1997.