Hattie Morahan

Infobox actor


imagesize =
caption =
birthname =
birthdate = 1979
birthplace = London, England, UK
yearsactive = 1996-present
spouse =

Hattie Morahan (born 1979) is an award-winning English actress.

Background

Morahan is the daughter of director Christopher Morahan and actress Anna Carteret. She was educated at Frensham Heights School and New Hall, Cambridge, graduating with an English degree.

While at Cambridge she directed and appeared in student productions, including "A View from the Bridge" which won her 'the most outstanding performance' award at the 1999 National Student Drama Festival for her role as Catherine.

Her undergraduate work at the ADC Theatre 1997-2000 is listed at [http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/stratfordians/stmorha.htm] .

She is engaged to the actor and director Blake Ritson with whom she has worked as script supervisor on three of his short films, also as costume designer and performer on "Good Boy" (2008). “He needs help behind the scenes." she told the Sunday Times. "I’m happy to supply it. I just like to get on with it.” [Sunday Times interview April 2008 [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article3758016.ece] ]

Career

She made her professional debut at the age of 17, playing the leading role of Una Gwithian in a two-part BBC television adaptation of "The Peacock Spring" (1996).

Morahan joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001, making her theatre debut at Stratford upon Avon in "Love in a Wood" and her London debut at the Barbican Theatre in December 2001 in "Hamlet". Other credits for the company included "Night of the Soul" and "Prisoner's Dilemma".

At the Tricycle Theatre in March 2004 she played Ruby, a Sixties hippie who becomes a disenchanted Eighties political wife, for the Oxford Stage company revival of Peter Flannery's "Singer" [http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/singer-rev.htm] . In the same year she first worked with Katie Mitchell at the National Theatre when she starred in the title role of Euripides' "Iphigenia at Aulis" [http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/2829] .

In July 2005 she appeared again at the National in Nick Dear's "Power", staged in the Cottesloe Theatre [http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/power-rev.htm] , and also won acclaim at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in September 2005 playing Viola in Ian Brown's production of "Twelfth Night". Stage review [http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/9772/twelfth-night] .

In 2006 she played the leading role of Penelope Toop in Douglas Hodge's touring revival of Philip King's hit farce "See How They Run" [http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/seehowrun-rev.htm] . In the same year, for her Lyttleton Theatre performance as Nina in Katie Mitchell's staging of Chekhov's "The Seagull" [http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/13090/the-seagull] , she was awarded second prize in the Ian Charleson Awards 2007.

TV credits include "Bodies" and BBC One's "Outnumbered" [(August 17, 2007). http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/08_august/17/outnumbered.shtml Outnumbered] , BBC]

In January 2008, she appeared in the film "The Bank Job" and played a mounted policewoman in the ITV comedy drama "Bike Squad".

Giving a career enhancing performance, she also played Elinor Dashwood in the BBC One three-part adaptation by Andrew Davies of Jane Austen's novel "Sense and Sensibility", first broadcast on New Year's Day 2008. "Hattie Morahan's Elinor is as good a piece of acting as you're going to see this year," wrote Christopher Hart, Sunday Times Sunday 13th January, 2008. On June 13th 2008, she won Best Actress at the 14th Shanghai Television Festival for her performance.

On 26 February 2008, she played Libby, a graduate investigating mis-selling of bank loans, in D J Britton's radio play "When Greed Becomes Fear", a BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play 'inspired by the current sub-prime lending fiasco in America'.

She worked again with director Katie Mitchell, co-starring Benedict Cumberbatch in "The City", a new, darkly comic mystery play by Martin Crimp, [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/drama/reviews/story/0,,2276913,00.html] 24 April-7 June, 2008 [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article3758016.ece] .

In July 2008 she returned to the National to appear in Katie Mitchell's adaptation of Dosteovsky's "The Idiot", co-starring Ben Whishaw at the Cottesloe Theatre [http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=206&action=details&show=L1165731768] . Later in the year, she will appear in TS Eliot's "The Family Reunion" at the Donmar Warehouse.

Credits

References

Theatre Record and its annual Indexes

External links

*imdb name|id=0602455|name=Hattie Morahan
*Hattie Morahan Website [http://www.hattiemorahan.com]
*Dictionary of the RSC: Hattie Morahan [http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/stratfordians/stmorha.htm]
*Seagull Reviews [http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=18055&dspl=reviews]
*Iphigenia Reviews [http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/?lid=7783&dspl=reviews]
*"We're just wild about Hattie", interview by Lesley White, Sunday Times: Culture 20 April, 2008 [http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article3758016.ece]