Jane Horrocks was born January 18, 1964 in Rossendale Valley, Lancashire, England, which is in the northern part of England. She has two older brothers. Jane became interested in acting at a young age, and after high school, she went to a technical college in Oldham, and then was able to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, with such luminaries as Imogen Stubbs and Ralph Fiennes, and where Jane won the Bronze Award. After graduation, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Jane, from the age of 10, enjoyed singing and mimicking famous singing stars from the past. When she was starring in the play 'Road', she attended the cast party and decided to get up and do a party turn by singing several songs. The British playwright Jim Cartwright was at this party and was so impressed by her singing in imitating such wonderful old singers as Edith Piaf, Judy Garland and Shirley Bassey, that he decided to write a play for her. The result was the play The Rise and Fall of Little Voice which was a great success in London, starring Jane as Little Voice. The movie rights for the play were bought up soon after the play opened in 1992, but it was almost 6 years before it became a film. For a while there was talk of changing the location from England to America, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Brad Pitt as stars, but finally the film was made in England with Jane and Michael Caine. The film received Oscar nominations for Brenda Blethyn and Michael Caine. Jane also appeared on the British television series Absolutely Fabulous, playing the ditzy public relations assistant Bubbles.

For several years she dated Sam Mendes, the British Theatre wunderkind, but Jane may have made a slip in describing him as 'extremely rightwing' , though she claimed she was misreported. The couple split up shortly thereafter. She began dating British TV writer Nick Vivian and lived with him several years before marrying him. Jane and Nick have two children, the oldest, named Dylan, is 3 years old, and the younger was born in March,1999. Jane took off some time to be with her family just before and after the birth of her second child, a daughter named Molly.

Jane has appeared in many British films, plays and television shows besides AbFab, including Life is Sweet, The Witches, Bad Girl, Deadly Advice and King Henry IV. She has appeared on stage in many in Cabaret, Girls Will Be Girls, and starred in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice.

Although Jane has played many victim roles on film, TV and stage, she is no victim in her personal life. She is strong and outspoken actress, and once slapped one of her co-actors in a film when he continually showed up late. At the end of January, 2000, Jane was honored at Madame Tussaud's famous wax museum when she unveiled an uncannily similar wax figure of herself as she appeared in the pink sequined dress in the film 'Little Voice'. Jane, while holding her baby daughter, commented "It looks more like me than me!" Here is a link to the photo.