Tara Fitzgerald Biography

Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald (born 18 September 1967) is a British actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage. She won the New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play in 1995 as Ophelia opposite Ralph Fiennes in Hamlet. She won the Best Actress Award at The Reims International Television Festival in 1999 for her role of Lady Dona St Columb in Frenchman's Creek. Fitzgerald's appeared in the West End production of The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre with Damian Lewis and Keira Knightley, and in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Donmar Warehouse. Since 2007, Fitzgerald has appeared in more than 30 episodes of the BBC television series Waking the Dead and played the role of Selyse Baratheon in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Career

Film

Following her graduation from Drama Centre London Fitzgerald appeared as the daughter of a beauty queen in the comedy Hear My Song (1991). She came to international attention in 1993 when she starred with Hugh Grant in the Australian comedy Sirens. The film landed Fitzgerald an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actress in a Lead Role. Two years later she again appeared with Grant in the comedy The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain. Fitzgerald appeared in a steady stream of independent feature films through the 1990s and 2000s, among them the all-star cast in A Man of No Importance (1994), Brassed Off (1996), the Czech World War II fighter pilot drama Dark Blue World (2001), and the 2004 drama, Secret Passage, set during the Spanish Inquisition, (UK title: The Lion's Mouth). In 2006 she appeared in In a Dark Place, and in 2014 she played Miriam in Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Fitzgerald has been exploring directing opportunities.

Stage

Fitzgerald's first major stage role came in 1992 when she appeared opposite Peter O'Toole in Our Song at the Apollo Theatre. She has alternated between stage and screen for almost two decades, with frequent theatre roles. In 1995, she starred as Ophelia opposite Ralph Fiennes in Hamlet at London's Almeida Theatre, which led to her American stage debut. The production transferred across the Atlantic and played more than 90 performances on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre.

Since then she has played Antigone in a national UK tour and Blanche Du Bois in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire at the Bristol Old Vic and appeared with Gillian Anderson in A Doll's House at the Donmar Warehouse. Fitzgerald has also appeared in Molire's The Misanthrope in 2009 with Keira Knightly and Damian Lewis at the Comedy Theatre (now the Pinter). She appeared alongside Jo Stone-Fewings in The Winters Tale at the RSC in 2013 and appeared in Gaslight at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in 2015. Fitzgerald is currently performing as Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's Globe theatre.

Television

A veteran of more than twenty television programmes and mini-series, Fitzgerald has portrayed Victorian heroines and modern police detectives. Her first TV role was in the 1991 BBC production The Black Candle, set in Yorkshire in the 1880s. In 1992, she was featured in The Camomile Lawn. After her feature film success, she landed her first starring role in a television film, The Vacillations of Poppy Carew. She won Best Actress at the 1999 Reims International Television Festival for the costumes-and-pirates love story Frenchman's Creek. In 2006 she was featured in The Virgin Queen, before taking on the role of Dr. Eve Lockhart on Waking The Dead; she joined the cast in 2007. She also had a recurring role on Game of Thrones, playing Selyse Florent.

Personal life

Fitzgerald is the daughter of artist Michael Callaby (who died in 1978, when she was 11) and Irish portrait photographer Sarah Geraldine Fitzgerald. She spent part of her childhood in the Bahamas, where her maternal grandfather ran a law firm. Her sister, Arabella, was born there. Following the family's return to England when she was three, Fitzgerald's parents separated; her stepfather was actor Norman Rodway. She has a half-sister from this marriage, Bianca Rodway. Her mother's aunt was actress Geraldine Fitzgerald; other cousins through the Fitzgerald family are the Irish novelist Jennifer Johnston and Irish actress Susan Fitzgerald.

In 2001, Fitzgerald married the American actor-director John Sharian, who directed her in The Snatching of Bookie Bob. The couple separated in May 2003 and later divorced.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Hear My Song	Nancy Doyle	Film won Best Comedy from the British Comedy Awards
1993	Sirens	Estella Campion	Australian Film Institute nomination Best Actress in a Lead Role
	Galleria	Marie	First sci-fi role
1994	A Man of No Importance	Adele Rice
1995	The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain	Elizabeth aka Betty from Cardiff
1996	Brassed Off	Gloria Mullins
1998	Conquest	Daisy MacDonald	Shot on location in Saskatchewan
	The Snatching of Bookie Bob	Silk	19-minute short directed by John Sharian, whom Fitzgerald married in 2001
1999	New World Disorder	Kris Paddock	Filmed in Luxembourg
	Childhood	Ange	Shot on location in Moscow
2000	Rancid Aluminium	Masha	Plays opposite Sadie Frost
2001	Dark Blue World	Susan Whitmore	Czech title: Tmavomodr sv?t
2003	I Capture the Castle	Topaz Mortmain	Film won the Audience Award at the Film by the Sea International Film Festival
2004	Five Children and It	Mother	Film won Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival
	The Lion's Mouth	Clara	US title: Secret Passage
2006	In a Dark Place	Mrs. Grose	Based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw
2014	Exodus: Gods and Kings	Miriam
2015	Child 44	Inessa Nesterov
	Legend	Mrs. Shea
2016	Una	Andrea

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	The Black Candle	Victoria Mordaunt	Based on a novel by Catherine Cookson
1992	Six Characters in Search of an Author	Emily	BBC adaptation directed by Bill Bryden
	The Camomile Lawn	Young Polly	Based on a novel by Mary Wesley
	Anglo-Saxon Attitudes	Young Dollie Stokesay	BAFTA TV Award Best Drama Serial
1994	Fall from Grace	Catherine Pradier	Second World War drama based on the book by Larry Collins
	Cadfael: The Leper of St. Giles	Iveta de Massard	Episode 103, Book 5 of Cadfael
1995	The Vacillations of Poppy Carew	Poppy Carew	Based on the novel The Vacillations of Poppy Carew by Mary Wesley
1996	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall	Helen Graham	Based on the novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bront
1997	The Woman in White	Marian Fairlie	Nominated for BAFTA TV Award Best Drama Serial
	The Student Prince	Grace	US title: The Prince of Hearts
1998	Frenchman's Creek	Dona, Lady St. Columb	Won Best Actress at the 1999 Reims International Television Festival
	Little White Lies	Beth Marsh	Produced by the BBC; has early Gerard Butler role
1999	In the Name of Love	Zoe Walters	Thriller directed by Ferdinand Fairfax
2003	Love Again	Monica Jones	Directed by Susanna White
	Murder in Mind	Liz Morton	Season 3, Episode 1, Echoes
2004	Agatha Christie's Marple: The Body in the Library	Adelaide Jefferson
2005	Rose and Maloney	Annie Sorensen-Johnson	Season 2, Episode 2 (No.2.2)
	Like Father Like Son	D.I. Harkness
2006	Jane Eyre	Mrs. Reed	Distributed by BBC One
	The Virgin Queen	Kat Ashley	US title: Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen
2007	Waking the Dead	Dr. Eve Lockhart	32 episodes, seasons 6 to 9, 2007-2011
2009	U Be Dead	Debra Pemberton	ITV drama based on Maria Marchese stalker case
2011	The Body Farm	Eve Lockhart	BBC drama
2013-2015	Game of Thrones	Selyse Florent	Based on A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R. R. Martin
2014	In the Club	Susie	BBC drama
	The Musketeers	Marie de Medici	Episode: "The Exiles"
2016	Death in Paradise	Anouk Laban	Episode 5,6
2017	Strike	Tansy Bestigui	3 episodes
2018	Requiem	Sylvia Walsh	6 episodes
2018	Origin	Xavia Grey	Episode: "The Road Not Taken"
2018	The ABC Murders	Lady Hermione Clarke	TV Series

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Director	Playwright	Theatre
1992	Our Song	Angela Caxton		Keith Waterhouse	Apollo Theatre (London) and UK tour
1995	Hamlet	Ophelia	Jonathan Kent	William Shakespeare	Almeida Theatre (London) Belasco Theatre (New York)
1999	Antigone	Antigone		Sophocles	Old Vic, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Oxford Playhouse
2000	A Streetcar Named Desire	Blanche Du Bois		Tennessee Williams	Bristol Old Vic
2004	A Doll's House	Nora Helmer		Ibsen & Zinnie Harris	UK tour
	Clouds	Mara Hill	Jennie Darnell	Michael Frayn	National UK tour
2005	And Then There Were None	Vera Claythorne	Steven Pimlott	Agatha Christie	Gielgud Theatre
2009	A Doll's House	Christine Lyle	Kfir Yefet	Ibsen & Zinnie Harris	Donmar Warehouse
	The Misanthrope	Marcia	Thea Sharrock	Molire & Martin Crimp	Comedy Theatre
2011	Broken Glass	Sylvia Gellburg	Iqbal Khan	Arthur Miller	Vaudeville Theatre
2013	The Winter's Tale	Hermione	Lucy Bailey	William Shakespeare	Globe Theatre London and UK tour

Video games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2018	World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth	Queen Mia Greymane