At the end of the 90’s Lisa Stansfield began her acting career, in parallel to her singing career. Even though she felt comfortable in front of a camera, thanks to her past as children TV shows host, she had the opportunity to play the role of the protagonist in a film only in 1999.

The director Nick Mead casted Lisa for the part of Joan Woodcock (female protagonist) for his Swing film, an independent, low-budget movie that reached good success. It tells the story of Martin (“Full monty’s” Hugo Speer), a fickle man who gets out from jail and forms a swing band. While in prison, he learns the saxophone from a fellow inmate (an astonishing Clarence Clemons, Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band saxophonist), once he’s released, he and a few friends join together to make music. He’d want his ex girlfriend Joan (Lisa Stansfield) to be the band’s singer but she’s married to the officer who arrested him.
The film has a nice plot, a lot of music and ends happily, the critics liked it but other more publicized movies put “Swing” in the shade. The original soundtrack includes: 8 classical jazz and swing covers all sang by Lisa, 4 tracks composed by Stansfield, Devaney and Darbyshire, two of them sang by Lisa and the other two by Georgie Fame and 3 small instrumental tracks written and played by Devaney.

In 2002 (from the 04th to the 23rd of February) Lisa made her stage debut in The Vagina Monologues at the Arts Theatre in London’s West End together with Anita Dobson and Cecilia Noble. It is an Eve Ensler’s play staged from 1996, every monologues somehow relates to the vagina as a tool of female empowerment and the ultimate embodiment of individuality, some of them were performed also by Eve. After two years the meaning of the piece changed from a celebration of vaginas and femininity to a movement to stop violence against women. The first plays were staged at small theatres but then “The monologues” gained so much popularity that were performed even at Madison Square Garden in 2001 and cable TV channel HBO produced a television version. During the years, Eve Ensler and some famous artists such as Melissa Etheridge and Whoopi Goldberg performed the monologues, for this reason also Lisa was involved in this theatrical work.

Three years later Lisa appeared as guest star in one episode of the TV series Monkey trousers. Even if she played herself in a brief cameo, it was important because the show obtained a great success in fact a 6 episode DVD was published. It was a series of six half-hour shows full of hilarious sketches and characters, all performed by the cream of British comedy. Monkey trousers was the first co-production between Baby Cow and Pett Productions and it made its debut on May 2005.

Goldplated was a TV mini-series made up of eight episodes which made its debut on Channel 4 on October 2006. It was about the story of businessman John White where his personal life is intertwined with his business life. Lisa Stansfield, as Trinny Jamieson, appeared in two episodes: The charity dinner and The funeral.
Despite a massive promotional campaign, the series fared bad in the ratings, so Channel 4 decided to shunt the remaining episodes to a late-night slot on E4.
In 2007 Lisa appeared in the TV series Agatha Christie’s Marple in the episode Ordeal by the innocence playing the role of Mary Durrant. Miss Marple is one of Christie's characters created in 1930, female protagonist of many crime novels and short stories, some of them can be seen also on big screen. She is a cunning old woman who lives in St. Mary Mead that helps the local police to solve mysteries. She has been portrayed numerous times on TV, in 2007 Geraldine McEwan starred in 12 episodes produced by ITV. In the Italian version, Ordeal by innocence has been translated in two different ways: Evidence of innocence (Prova di innocenza) and The two truths (Le due verità).

The edge of love was a 2008 John Maybury film in which Lisa played the role of Ruth Williams. The story was set in London during World War II and it concerns the life of the famous poet Dylan Thomas who runs into Vera Phillips, his first love.
Their feelings are renewed but the return of his wife Caitlin quenches their romance.
The film was very expected, most of all because of the first-rate cast, but the critics were split between supporters and detractors.

For some the director couldn’t create the right mix to make all the elements work, while for some others the film was a great, refined drama with an accurate atmosphere of London under siege from Nazi bombers.

Let’s go back a little, in 2007 Lisa Stansfield took part in another project, she dubbed one of the characters (Millie, an elf) for the English version of the animated film Quest for a heart (original title Rölli sydän). It was based on an unknown Finnish book and produced by a studio in Moscow with Finnish financial support.

The film is in 2D and 3D versions and it’s available on DVD. Quest for a heart tells the story of Rolli, a young, strange troll who hates doing the right things as kissing and following the rules. When he comes across Millie, a beautiful little elf girl, he learns how to live in peace and harmony. However, something is beginning to destroy the Forest of the Elves, and the only way to stop it is to find a magic heart hidden in the Land of Winter.

For many critics the film didn’t work properly and the animation seemed to have some faults, in fact the final result didn’t reach the level of other most famous animated film. The soundtrack, available on CD, is composed by Tuomas Kantelinen. Lisa Stansfield sings the main song Quest for a heart (not included in the OST) written by Charlie Mole and Lee Hall and produced by Mole in collaboration with Ali Thomson.

In 2009 Lisa had the right chance to return to work with her friend and director Nick Mead playing in three documentaries: The colony, 5 days: a gipsy journey and Dean Street shuffle. Only the last one was completed and released, the other two have to be edited yet. Some rumors spread about Lisa plays herself in all the films but for the moment we can see her only in Dean Street shuffle. Nick Mead explained that he shot this 8-minute short film during a walk through the night life of Dean Street in Soho together with Lisa and Ian Devaney. It’s an interesting and fascinating work enhanced by the use of black and white that shows a particular cross-section of London lifestyle.

In In 2012 Lisa Stasfield had a great chance, to come back and play a role in a film. Director Elaine Constantine assigned a role to Lisa in her film Northern Soul, an indipendent docudrama about the social and cultural phenomenon of this music genre.
The movie made its debut in October 2014 after two years in the making and told the story of two teenagers from Northern England whose lives are changed forever by the discovery of black American soul music. Northern Soul is for those who lived in the seventies during this music and social movement but also for a younger public who wants to know more about the youth culture of the past.The film has positive receptions because it creates prefectly the atmosphere of that period but at the same time the director is not so able to manage the documentary part about northern soul music that seems to be lost among various sub-plots.