Sinéad Cusack
Encyclopedia
Sinéad Moira Cusack is an Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 stage, television and film actress. She has received two Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nominations: once for Best Leading Actress
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The award has been presented since 1947, and is for performance in new productions or revivals.-1940s:...

 in Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....

(1985), and again for Best Featured Actress
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play
This is a list of winners and nomination of the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress. The award was first presented in 1947.-1940s:* 1947: Patricia Neal – Another Part of the Forest* 1949: Shirley Booth – Goodbye, My Fancy-1950s:...

 in Rock 'n' Roll
Rock 'n' Roll (play)
Rock 'n' Roll is a play by British playwright Tom Stoppard that premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2006.-Plot summary:The play is concerned with the significance of rock and roll in the emergence of the socialist movement in Eastern Bloc Czechoslovakia between the Prague Spring of...

(2008).

Background

Cusack was born Jane Moira Cusack, the daughter of Maureen Cusack (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....

 Kiely) and Cyril Cusack
Cyril Cusack
Cyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...

, both actors. She is the sister of actresses Sorcha Cusack
Sorcha Cusack
Sorcha Cusack Born in Dublin on 9 April 1949, She has made many film and television appearances including The Bill, Casualty , the 1973 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre and the worldwide hit movie Snatch as the traveller mother of Mickey played by Brad Pitt...

, Niamh Cusack
Niamh Cusack
Niamh Cusack is an Irish actress. The daughter of late Irish actor Cyril Cusack, she is the sister of Sinéad Cusack and Sorcha Cusack, and half sister of Catherine Cusack. Cusack played Dr Kate Rowan in the television drama series Heartbeat...

 and half-sister to Catherine Cusack
Catherine Cusack
Catherine Cusack is a British actress. She is the half-sister of the actresses Sinéad Cusack, Sorcha Cusack and Niamh Cusack, and the fourth daughter of the actor Cyril Cusack and his second wife Mary Rose Cunningham's only child...

.

Career

Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre
Abbey Theatre
The Abbey Theatre , also known as the National Theatre of Ireland , is a theatre located in Dublin, Ireland. The Abbey first opened its doors to the public on 27 December 1904. Despite losing its original building to a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day...

 in Dublin. In 1970, she starred with Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...

 in the film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 Hoffman
Hoffman (film)
Hoffman is a 1970 British film directed by Alvin Rakoff and starring Peter Sellers, Sinéad Cusack, Jennifer Ruth Dunning and Jeremy Bulloch....

. In 1971, she guest starred in an episode of The Persuaders!
The Persuaders!
The Persuaders! is a 1971 action/adventure series, produced by ITC Entertainment for initial broadcast on ITV and ABC. It has been called "the last major entry in the cycle of adventure series that had begun eleven years earlier with Danger Man in 1960", as well as "the most ambitious and most...

(starring Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis
Tony Curtis was an American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in over 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama...

 and Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...

) as Jenny Lindley, a wealthy heiress who suspects that a man claiming to be her dead brother is in fact an impostor.

In 1975, she moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...

. She made her Broadway debut in 1984 performing in repertory with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starring opposite Derek Jacobi
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...

, she played Roxane in Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson  – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

' translation of Edmond Rostand
Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism, and is best known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac. Rostand's romantic plays provided an alternative to the naturalistic theatre popular during the late nineteenth century...

's Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (play)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a play written in 1897 by Edmond Rostand. Although there was a real Cyrano de Bergerac, the play bears very scant resemblance to his life....

(having taken the role over from Alice Krige
Alice Krige
Alice Maud Krige is a South African actress. Her first feature film role was as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire...

, who played Roxane through the play's London run) and Beatrice in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing
Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy written by William Shakespeare about two pairs of lovers, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero....

,
directed by Terry Hands
Terry Hands
Terence David Hands is an English theatre director. He ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for 20 years during one of its most successful periods.-Early years:...

. The production of Cyrano de Bergerac was later filmed in 1985. Much Ado was first produced at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1982-83, then moved to London's Barbican Theatre for the 1983-1984 season where it was joined by Cyrano, before both plays came to New York's Gershwin Theatre from October 1984 to January 1985, for which Cusack received a Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...

 nomination for her performance as Beatrice, and costar Jacobi
Derek Jacobi
Sir Derek George Jacobi, CBE is an English actor and film director.A "forceful, commanding stage presence", Jacobi has enjoyed a highly successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya, and Oedipus the King. He received a Tony Award for his performance in...

 won the award for his Benedick. During this period, Cusack and her husband, Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

, appeared in a "Shakespeare Winter's Eve", a major fundraiser for the Riverside Shakespeare Company
Riverside Shakespeare Company
The Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City was founded in 1977 as a professional theatre company on the Upper West Side of New York City, by W. Stuart McDowell and Gloria Skurski...

 in New York, along with other members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Following the Broadway run, the plays toured the US, making stops in Washington DC and Los Angeles. She appeared in the 1992 film adaptation of Graham Swift
Graham Swift
Graham Colin Swift FRSL is a British author. He was born in London, England and educated at Dulwich College, London, Queens' College, Cambridge, and later the University of York. He was a friend of Ted Hughes...

's novel Waterland
Waterland (novel)
Waterland is a 1983 novel by Graham Swift. It is considered to be the author's premier novel and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize .In 1992, the book was made into a film version....

, alongside her husband Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

.

One of her best known stage roles was Our Lady of Sligo in 1998, in which she played the principal role of Mai O'Hara in performances in Ireland, on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 and at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

. She also starred in the 2004 BBC miniseries North and South in a scene-stealing role as Mrs. Thornton, and in the 2006 film V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta (film)
V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...

.

She was awarded the 1998 Evening Standard Award
Evening Standard Awards
The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre. Sponsored by the Evening Standard newspaper, they are announced in late November or early December...

 for Best Actress and the 1998 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress. In 2006, she starred in the BBC sitcom Home Again.

Along with other actresses, including Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw
Fiona Shaw
Fiona Shaw, CBE is an 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 an accomplished classical actress...

, Juliet Stevenson
Juliet Stevenson
Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, CBE is an English actor of stage and screen.- Early life :Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth , a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevenson's father was in the army and was posted to a new place every...

 and Harriet Walter
Harriet Walter
Dame Harriet Mary Walter, DBE is a British actress.-Personal life:She is the niece of renowned British actor Sir Christopher Lee, as the daughter of his elder sister Xandra Lee. On her father's side she is a great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The TimesShe was educated at...

, Cusack contributed to a book by Carol Rutter called Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare's Women Today (1994). The book analyzed modern acting interpretations of female Shakespearean roles.

She is currently starring in the TV series Camelot
Camelot (TV series)
Camelot is a historical-fantasy-drama television series which premiered on April 1, 2011. It was co-produced by the Starz cable network and GK-TV which began production during the summer of 2010...

.

Personal life

She married British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actor Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

 in 1978, and they have two sons, Samuel James (Sam), born 16 September 1978, and Maximilian Paul (known as Max Irons
Max Irons
Maximilian Paul Diarmuid "Max" Irons is an English film actor and model. He is perhaps most noted for his leading role in Red Riding Hood....

), born 17 October 1985.

Prior to marrying Irons, Cusack gave birth to a son in 1968 and placed the child for adoption. Cusack and her son, revealed to be the Irish politician Richard Boyd Barrett
Richard Boyd Barrett
Richard Boyd Barrett is an Irish politician who is currently a Teachta Dála for the Dún Laoghaire constituency.Boyd Barrett is a former member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, and chair of the Irish Anti-War Movement and is frequently cited in the Irish media...

, have since been reunited. Cusack campaigned for Boyd Barrett when he stood unsuccessfully in Ireland's 2007 general election as the People Before Profit Alliance
People Before Profit Alliance
The People Before Profit Alliance is an Irish political party formed in October 2005. It is active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.-Overview:It was established by the Socialist Workers Party...

's candidate for Dún Laoghaire constituency
Dún Laoghaire (Dáil Éireann constituency)
Dún Laoghaire is a parliamentary constituency represented in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish parliament or Oireachtas. The constituency elects 4 deputies...

. She also joined him in the count centre as he awaited the outcome of the 2011 general election, at which he was elected to Dáil Éireann
Dáil Éireann
Dáil Éireann is the lower house, but principal chamber, of the Oireachtas , which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann . It is directly elected at least once in every five years under the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote...

.

Sinead Cusack is a patron of the Burma Campaign UK
Burma Campaign UK
Burma Campaign UK founded in 1991 is a London based Non Governmental Organisation that aims to achieve the 'restoration of human rights and democracy in Burma . BCUK campaigns on behalf of the Burmese pro-democracy movement and is the largest campaigning organisation for Burma in Europe...

, the London based group campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma.

In 1998 Cusack was named, along with her husband Jeremy Irons
Jeremy Irons
Jeremy John Irons is an English actor. After receiving classical training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Irons began his acting career on stage in 1969, and has since appeared in many London theatre productions including The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the...

, in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

.

In August 2010 Cusack signed the "Irish artists' pledge to boycott Israel" initiated by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Filmography

  • Alfred the Great
    Alfred the Great (film)
    Alfred the Great is a 1969 epic film which portrayed Alfred the Great's struggle to rid Wessex of the invading Danes, in the 870s AD. It starred David Hemmings in the title role.-Plot:...

    (1969)
  • Hoffman
    Hoffman (film)
    Hoffman is a 1970 British film directed by Alvin Rakoff and starring Peter Sellers, Sinéad Cusack, Jennifer Ruth Dunning and Jeremy Bulloch....

    (1970)
  • Tam Lin (1970)
  • Revenge
    Revenge (1971 film)
    Revenge is a 1971 British thriller film directed by Sidney Hayers and starring Joan Collins, James Booth and Sinéad Cusack. A family seek brutal revenge on the man who attacked their daughter.-Cast:* Joan Collins - Carol Radford...

    (1971)
  • The Last Remake of Beau Geste
    The Last Remake of Beau Geste
    The Last Remake of Beau Geste is a 1977 American historical comedy film. It starred and was also directed and co-written by Marty Feldman. It is a satire loosely based on the novel Beau Geste, a frequently-filmed story of brothers and their adventures in the French Foreign Legion. The humor is...

    (1977)
  • Dublin Murders (1985)
  • Rocket Gibraltar
    Rocket Gibraltar
    Rocket Gibraltar is an American film released in 1988, directed by Daniel Petrie and starring Burt Lancaster and Patricia Clarkson. In the movie, an aging patriarch reunites his entire family for his birthday, but personal and social problems abound.-Cast:...

    (1988)
  • Venus Peter
    Venus Peter
    Venus Peter is a 1989 British drama film directed by Ian Sellar and produced by Christopher Young for Young films. The film is an adopation of the novel A Twelvemonth and a Day by Christopher Rush. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. It was filmed on...

    (1989)
  • Waterland
    Waterland (film)
    Waterland is a 1992 film directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal, based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Graham Swift. The film starred Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Ethan Hawke, and John Heard.-Plot:...

    (1992)
  • Bad Behaviour
    Bad Behaviour
    Bad Behaviour is a 1993 British comedy film directed by Les Blair and starring Stephen Rea, Sinéad Cusack and Philip Jackson. The film depicts an Irish couple living with their family in North London.-Cast:* Stephen Rea - Gerry McAllister...

    (1993)
  • The Cement Garden
    The Cement Garden (film)
    The Cement Garden is a 1993 British drama film directed by Andrew Birkin, based on the novel of the same name. It was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival where Birkin won the Silver Bear for Best Director.-Plot:...

    (1993)
  • Sparrow
    Sparrow (1993 film)
    Sparrow is a 1993 Italian drama film directed by Franco Zeffirelli. It is an adaptation of Giovanni Verga's novel, Storia di una capinera and was filmed in Sicily in 1993...

    (1993)
  • Uncovered
    Uncovered (film)
    Uncovered is a 1994 film based on Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Flanders Panel. It was directed by Jim McBride. The leading actress was Kate Beckinsale as the main character Julia.-Plot:...

    (1994)
  • Stealing Beauty
    Stealing Beauty
    Stealing Beauty is a 1996 drama film directed by Academy Award-winning Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci and written by Bertolucci and Susan Minot. It stars Liv Tyler, D.W. Moffett, Jeremy Irons, and Rachel Weisz...

    (1996)
  • The Nephew
    The Nephew
    The Nephew is a 1998 film directed by Eugene Brady, which tells the story of a young biracial American man, Chad Egan-Washington .-Plot:...

    (1998)
  • Passion of Mind
    Passion of Mind
    Passion of Mind is a 2000 American psychological drama film starring Demi Moore. It was the first English-language film from Belgian director Alain Berliner, best known for the arthouse success Ma Vie en Rose.-Plot:...

    (2000)
  • My Mother Frank
    My Mother Frank
    My Mother Frank is a multi-award-winning Australian film released in 2000.-Plot outline:David Kennedy is preparing to go to university. His mother, Francis is a widow and has very little social life. David tells her that she should get out more and much to his surprise, Frank enrolls at the same...

    (2000)
  • Dream (2001)
  • I Capture the Castle
    I Capture the Castle (film)
    I Capture The Castle is a 2003 film directed by Tim Fywell. It is based on the 1948 novel of the same title by Dodie Smith and was adapted to screenplay by Heidi Thomas...

    (2003)
  • Mathilde
    Mathilde (film)
    Mathilde is a 2004 drama film written and directed by Nina Mimica and starring Jeremy Irons, Nutsa Kukhianidze and Sinéad Cusack. It was a co-production between several different countries. A young girl attempts to kill a UN peacekeeper after the war in Croatia, leading to an investigation into the...

    (2004)
  • North and South (TV serial) (2004)
  • V for Vendetta
    V for Vendetta (film)
    V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...

    (2006)
  • The Tiger's Tail
    The Tiger's Tail
    The Tiger's Tail is a 2006 Irish film directed by John Boorman. It stars Brendan Gleeson and Kim Cattrall. The story focuses on the modern Celtic Tiger Irish economy of the late 20th century.-Plot:...

    (2006)
  • Eastern Promises (2007)
  • Cracks
    Cracks (film)
    Cracks is an independent drama film starring Eva Green, Juno Temple, María Valverde, and Imogen Poots, which was released theatrically in the UK and Ireland on December 4, 2009...

    (2009)

External links

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