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| Fiona Shaw |
| Born |
Fiona Mary Wilson
10 July 1958 (1958-07-10) (age 51)
County Cork, Ireland |
| Occupation |
Actress/Theatre director |
| Years active |
1983–present |
Fiona Shaw, CBE (born 10 July 1958) is a leading Irish actress and theatre director. Although to international audiences she is probably most familiar for her minor role as Petunia Dursley in the Harry Potter films, she is regarded as one of the finest classical actresses of her generation.[1][2] Shaw was awarded an honorary CBE in 2001.[3]
Early life
Shaw was born Fiona Mary Wilson in County Cork, Ireland, to a mixed-religious couple and was raised Catholic.[4][5] Her father was an eye surgeon[6] and her mother was a physicist.[7] She liked to be called "Fe Fe" in her childhood years and attended secondary school at Scoil Mhuire In Cork City. She received her degree in University College Cork. She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London and was part of 'new wave’ of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Bruce Payne and Kenneth Branagh. She received much acclaim as Julia in the National Theatre production of Richard Sheridan's The Rivals (1983), a role which demonstrated her gift for comedy. Despite her natural comic abilities, Shaw has opted more often than not for roles showcasing her extreme but unaffected emotional intensity. These performances have earned her numerous stage awards.
Career
Her notable theatrical roles include Young Woman in Machinal, Celia in As You Like It (1984), Madame de Volanges in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1985), Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew (1987), Winnie in Happy Days (2007), and the title roles in Electra (1988), The Good Person of Sechuan (1989), Hedda Gabler (1991), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1998) and Medea (2000). She performed T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land as a one-person show at the Liberty Theatre in New York to great acclaim in 1996, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show for her performance.[8]
Shaw played the lead in Richard II, directed by Deborah Warner in 1995. Shaw has collaborated with Warner on a number of occasions, on both stage and screen. Shaw has also worked in film and television, including My Left Foot, Jane Eyre, Persuasion, Gormenghast, and a number of the Harry Potter films in which she plays the insufferable Aunt Petunia. Shaw had a brief but key role in Brian DePalma's The Black Dahlia.
In 2008, she directed her first opera, Riders to the Sea by Vaughan Williams at the ENO.
In 2009, Shaw collaborated with Deborah Warner again, taking the lead role in Tony Kushner's translation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children. In a 2002 article for The Daily Telegraph Rupert Christiansen described their professional relationship as "surely one of the most richly creative partnerships in theatrical history."[9] Other collaborations between the two women include productions of Brecht's The Good Woman of Szechuan and Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, the latter was adapted for television.
Shaw will appear in The Waste Land at Wilton's Music Hall in January 2010 and in a National Theatre revival of London Assurance in March 2010.[10]
Personal life
Shaw has been romantically linked in the press with actress Saffron Burrows.[11][12][13] Neither actress has publicly commented on the relationship. The two appeared together in the National Theatre's production of The PowerBook,[14] a play based on the novel of the same name by Jeanette Winterson in which they played lovers. In an interview with the New Statesman published on 24 September 2009, Shaw stated that she lives in Primrose Hill where she "has lived ... on and off for a long time".[15] In a December 2009 interview, Shaw described herself as "very happily" single[16].
Credits
Other projects, contributions
References
- ^ Fiona Shaw
- ^ [1].
- ^ Honorary knighthood for Spike
- ^ DIDASKALIA: Ancient Theater Today
- ^ A Shaw Thing; Hot from playing Medea on Broadway, Fiona Shaw has just | Sunday Herald, The | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Fiona Shaw Biography (1960?-)
- ^ PROFILE: FIONA SHAW: An actor who is determined to keep shouting | Independent, The (London) | Find Articles at BNET.com
- ^ Ben Brantly, Memory and Desire: Hearing Eliot's Passion, New York Times November 18, 1996
- ^ Rupert Christiansen "Fiona Shaw's double life", Daily Telegraph, 10 May 2002
- ^ Taylor, Paul (18 December 2009). "Mother courage: How Fiona Shaw became the leading actress of her generation". The Independent. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/mother-courage-how-fiona-shaw-became-the-leading-actress-of-her-generation-1843616.html. Retrieved 18 December 2009.
- ^ "Mad About Saffron", Sydney Morning Herald, 15 May 2004
- ^ "Saffron Burrows Embraces Lesbian Relationships On-screen and Off", AfterEllen.com, October 2003
- ^ "A hint of Saffron", The Observer, May 5 2002
- ^ "The PowerBook" at the National Theatre
- ^ Sophie Elmhirst "The NS Interview: Fiona Shaw", New Statesman, 24 Septenmber 2009
- ^ {http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article6950450.ece Fiona Shaw: ‘I have enormous sadness in me’], The Times, 10 December 2009
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