Megan Dodds

Megan Dodds (born February 15, 1970) is an American stage and television actress.

Early life and education

Megan Lynne Dodds was born in Sacramento, California, and after high school she enrolled in a community college where she was cast as Bananas in John Guare's The House of Blue Leaves. The role inspired her enough to apply successfully to the Juilliard School, where she studied for four years^[1] as a member of the Drama Division's Group 24 (1991–1995).^[2]

Career

After graduation, Dodds spent two years in Off Broadway and Broadway productions, before being spotted by British comedian Ben Elton, and came to London in 1997 to play a bunny girl in Elton's play Popcorn. As a result of meeting her photographer husband Oliver Pearce, she became resident in London: “I love it here, I really feel like I learn a lot. There’s a lot of variety in terms of work.”^[3]

Dodds's track record in London shows the variety of work, as she has held down roles in diverse television productions, including: Love in a Cold Climate; playing Christine Dale, the CIA liaison officer in the BBC One series Spooks; and Kitty deLux in Viva Blackpool.^[4]

Theatre roles have included playing opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in 1999 in As You Like It, and kissing Madonna in Up for Grabs;^[5] in 2006 she won the London Theatregoers' Choice Award for Best Actress in the one woman show "My Name is Rachel Corrie".^[6] The show opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London, but a planned transfer to the New York Theatre Workshop was cancelled, with rumours of the theatre being afraid of the show’s Gaza Strip based political content. Dodds fought against the imposed indefinite delay, and the debate of censorship on such a sensitive issue at the time of the post-Iraq war debate became publicised by the New York Times. After a successful run in London's West End, the show eventually played to a sellout audience at the off-Broadway Minetta Lane Theatre in early 2006.

In 2006, she joined the cast of new sitcom Not Going Out as Kate, but she quit the show after the first series. Dodds's most famous movie role is perhaps the spoiled and selfish stepsister Margeurite in the 1998 romance Ever After.

Personal life

After coming to the UK in 1997, she met fashion and advertising photographer Oliver Pearce.^[1] The couple married and moved to Battersea, South London; they have one daughter, Isabella.

Filmography

Theatre^[6]

Film and TV

References

External links

• Megan Dodds at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Spooks character bio
• BBC Viva Blackpool character bio