Nia Roberts Biography

Nia Roberts (born 5 July 1972) is a Welsh actress. She is married to director Marc Evans.

Biography

The youngest of three girls, Roberts was born and brought up in Brecon, Powys. Her first language is Welsh, and she attended Brecon's Welsh-medium primary school Ysgol-y-Bannau from 1975 to 1983. Her family were active members of the Brecon Little Theatre amateur dramatics group, and aged seven she first trod the boards. Five years later, she landed her first television role as the lead girl in "The Farm", a 30-minute Jackanory play for BBC1.

After gaining ten GCSE's and three A Levels, she also joined the National Youth Theatre of Wales. She then studied acting at Birmingham University, where she passed with distinction.

Career

Roberts' big break came in 1998 when she was cast in the Paul Morrison-directed Solomon a Gaenor, opposite Ioan Gruffudd. Roberts turned up to the audition wearing hiking boots and an old baggy jumper that came down to her knees, having just returned from a two-month trip to South America. With dialogue in Welsh and Yiddish, it won Best Film at the 2000 Verona Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in the 72nd Academy Awards.

Her subsequent Welsh-language credits included: Fondue, Rhyw a Deinosors!, Newes of the Weeke, Y Palmant Aur, Glan Hafren and the long-running soap opera Pobol y Cwm. She followed these roles in 2007 when she played Kirsti O'Shea in S4C's gangster drama Y Pris. Roberts early career also included forays into English language television appearing in comedy series Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible, drama Border Caf and several single episode appearances in prime-time British shows such as The Bill and Casualty.

Roberts starred in two of her husband's directed-films, Snow Cake in 2006, a drama focused on the friendship between a high-functioning autistic woman and a man who is traumatized after a fatal car accident, and Patagonia in 2009, a drama set in Y Wladfa, Argentina. 2009 also saw Roberts star in the BBC Wales commissioned, Tony Jordan produced hospital drama Crash! as registrar Mary Finch.

In 2010, she guest starred in the two part Doctor Who Series 5 episode, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. More big screen productions followed with Roberts cast in Hattie Dalton's Third Star (2010) which she followed with the role of Katie in Vertigo Films' The Facility (2012), an atmospheric, micro-budget horror film about volunteers fighting for their lives after a drug trial goes wrong.

In 2014 she appeared in the fourth episode of Y Gwyll (Hinterland), a dual-language production shot in both the Welsh and English languages.

Personal life

Married to director Marc Evans, the couple are residing in Cardiff, and have a daughter Edith.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2009	Crash	Mary Finch

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2000	Canone Inverso	Costanza
2015	Under Milk Wood	Myfanwy Price