Hattie Morahan

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Hattie Morahan
Born 1979
London, England, UK
Years active 1996-present

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

Contents

[edit] 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 [2].

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.” [1]

[edit] 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 [3]. 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 [4].

In July 2005 she appeared again at the National in Nick Dear's Power, staged in the Cottesloe Theatre [5], and also won acclaim at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in September 2005 playing Viola in Ian Brown's production of Twelfth Night. Stage review [6].

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 [7]. In the same year, for her Olivier Theatre performance as Nina in Katie Mitchell's staging of Chekhov's The Seagull [8], she was awarded second prize in the Ian Charleson Awards 2007.

TV credits include Bodies and BBC One's Outnumbered[2]

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 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, [9] 24 April-7 June, 2008 [10].

In July 2008 she will return to the National to appear in Katie Mitchell's adaptation of Dosteovsky's The Idiot, co-starring Ben Whishaw at the Cottesloe Theatre [11].

[edit] Credits

Year Format Title Role Notes
1996 TV The Peacock Spring Una Gwithian BBC, director Christopher Morahan
2001 Theatre Love In A Wood by William Wycherley Lucy RSC Swan Theatre,

director Tim Supple
Hamlet Gentlewoman player RSC Stratford and Barbican,

director Steven Pimlott
The Prisoner's Dilemma by David Edgar Emilia RSC The Other Place and The Pit, Barbican,

director Michael Attenborough
2002 Night of the Soul by David Farr Tracy RSC The Pit, Barbican,

director David Farr
The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham Elizabeth UK tour, director Mark Rosenblatt
Short Film Too Close To The Bone
2003 Theatre Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring Elaine Strand Theatre,

25 February-31 May, director Francis Matthews
Power by Nick Dear Louise de la Valliere Cottesloe Theatre,

3 July-29 October, director Lindsay Posner
2004 Short Film Out of Time Receptionist
Theatre Singer by Peter Flannery Ruby Oxford Stage Company,UK tour,

director Sean Holmes
TV New Tricks Totty guest star
Theatre Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis Iphigenia Lyttelton Theatre,

22 June-7 September, director Katie Mitchell
2005 Twelfth Night Viola West Yorkshire Playhouse,

21 September-22 October, director Ian Brown
TV Bodies Beth Lucas
2006 Radio Trevor's World of Sport Carrie guest star
Theatre See How They Run Penelope Toop UK tour,

director Douglas Hodge
The Seagull in a version by Martin Crimp Nina Olivier Theatre,

27 June-23 September, director Katie Mitchell
2007 TV Outnumbered Jane guest star
Film The Golden Compass Nurse Clara
2008 TV Sense and Sensibility, adapted by Andrew Davies Elinor Dashwood BBC, director John Alexander
Bike Squad WPC Julie Cardigan
Trial & Retribution: To Kill A King Sally Lawson
Film The Bank Job Gale Benson
2008 Theatre The City by Martin Crimp Clair Royal Court Theatre,

24 April-7 June, director Katie Mitchell

[edit] References

Theatre Record and its annual Indexes

  1. ^ Sunday Times interview April 2008 [1]
  2. ^ (August 17, 2007). http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/08_august/17/outnumbered.shtml Outnumbered], BBC

[edit] External links