Rebecca Louisa Ferguson Sundström, born in Stockholm, Sweden, grew up in the Vasastaden district, where she was raised bilingual, speaking Swedish and English. Her father is Swedish, while her mother, Rosemary Ferguson, is British, of Scottish and Northern Irish descent, who moved to Sweden at the age of 25.
Ferguson attended an English-speaking school in Sweden and graduated in 1999 from Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm. At the age of 16, she gained prominence with her breakout role as Anna Gripenhielm in the soap-opera Nya tider (1999).
She currently resides in the seaside town of Simrishamn, on the Swedish south coast, having moved there to escape city life and the public spotlight following her soap opera success. It was in this town that Swedish director Richard Hobert spotted her at the town market in 2011, leading to her starring role in his film A One-Way Trip to Antibes (2011).
Before pursuing a full-time acting career, Ferguson taught Argentinian Tango at a dance company in Sweden for a few years.
In 2013, she played Queen Elizabeth Woodville in the BBC historical drama The White Queen (2013),earning a Golden Globe nomination. Her performance in the mini-series caught the attention of her co-star Tom Cruise, who chose her for the female lead in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015).
Ferguson's role as Ilsa Faust in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) received widespread acclaim, and she will reprise her role in the sixth Mission: Impossible film. In 2016, she starred in Despite the Falling Snow (2016),Florence Foster Jenkins (2016),and The Girl on the Train (2016).
Her subsequent projects include Dune, Life (2017),The Snowman (2017),The Greatest Showman (2017),The Lady and the Panda, and Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018).
