Hattie Morahan

Hattie Morahan

Morahan at the production for The Children's Monologues (2010)
Born Harriet Jane Morahan
1978
Lambeth, London, England
Occupation Actress
Years active 1996-present
Partner(s) Blake Ritson
Parent(s) Christopher Morahan
Anna Carteret

Harriet Jane "Hattie" Morahan (born 1978) is an English television, film and stage actress.

Early life

Morahan is the younger daughter of television and film director Christopher Morahan and actress Anna Carteret. Her older sister Rebecca is a theatre director.

Morahan was educated at Frensham Heights School and followed her older sister Rebecca to New Hall, Cambridge,[1] graduating with a BA in English in 2000.[2][3] 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.

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 1960s hippie who becomes a disenchanted 1980s political wife, for the Oxford Stage company revival of Peter Flannery's Singer.[4] 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.[5]

In July 2005 she appeared again at the National in Nick Dear's Power, staged in the Cottesloe Theatre[6] and also won acclaim at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in September 2005 playing Viola in Ian Brown's production of Twelfth Night.[7]

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.[8] In the same year, for her Lyttelton Theatre performance as Nina in Katie Mitchell's staging of Chekhov's The Seagull,[9] she was awarded second prize in the Ian Charleson Awards 2007.

TV credits include Bodies and BBC One's Outnumbered[10] where she portrays reoccurring character Jane. She has appeared in series 1, 2 and 4 of Outnumbered, as well as the Christmas Specials in 2009, 2011 and 2012.

In January 2008, she appeared in the film The Bank Job and played a mounted policewoman in the ITV comedy drama pilot 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 13 January 2008. On 13 June 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 with Benedict Cumberbatch in The City, a new, darkly comic mystery play by Martin Crimp,[11] 24 April – 7 June 2008.[12]

In July 2008 she returned to the National to appear in ...some trace of her, Katie Mitchell's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, co-starring Ben Whishaw at the Cottesloe Theatre,[13] while later in the year she played Mary in T.S. Eliot's The Family Reunion at the Donmar Warehouse.[14] She returned to the National in April 2009 to play Kay Conway in Rupert Goold's production of J. B. Priestley's Time and the Conways in the Lyttelton auditorium [15] and also Dawn in Caryl Churchill's Three More Sleepless Nights in the same season.

On 28 February 2010 she appeared as Miss Enid in Lark Rise to Candleford, and then as Martina Twain in the BBC adaptation of Martin Amis's Money. In the theatre, she played Annie in The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard at The Old Vic theatre, directed by Anna Mackmin, from April to June 2010; a year later returning to the stage in Thea Sharrock's pared-down Sheffield Crucible revival of David Hare's 1978 Plenty: Morahan affords the heady sensation of watching an actress at the top of her game (Sunday Times, Culture, 14 February 2011).

From 29 June - 26 July 2012, she played the lead role of Nora, opposite Dominic Rowan's Torvald, in new version of A Doll's House by Simon Stephens at London's Young Vic Theatre, in a production directed by Carrie Cracknell and designed by Ian MacNeil. Her performance saw her named Best Actress at the 2012 Evening Standard Awards and the 2012 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards.[16]

From 8 August to 26 October 2013 Hattie Morahan reprises her role as Nora Helmer alongside Dominic Rowan, who returns as her husband Torvald, at the Duke of York's Theatre London. Hattie gave an exclusive interview regarding her career and role in the play.[17]

Personal life

Morahan is engaged to the actor and director Blake Ritson, whom she met at Cambridge.[18] She 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."[19]

Credits

Film and television

Year Title Role Notes
1996 The Peacock Spring Una Gwithian BBC
2002 Too Close To The Bone Short
2004 Out of Time Receptionist Short
2004 New Tricks Totty Guest star
2005 Bodies Beth Lucas
20072011 Outnumbered Jane
2007 The Golden Compass Nurse Clara
2008 Sense and Sensibility Elinor Dashwood BBC
2008 Bike Squad WPC Julie Cardigan
2008 Trial & Retribution: To Kill A King Sally Lawson
2008 The Bank Job Gale Benson
2010 Lark Rise to Candleford (TV Series) Enid Fairley TV series (1 episode)
2011 Lewis: Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things Ruth Brooks ITV1
2012 Eternal Law Hannah English TV series (6 episodes)
2013 Midsomer Murders Hayley Brantner TV series (1 episode: "Schooled in Murder")
2013 Having You Lucy Feature film
2013 Summer in February Laura Knight Feature film
2014 The Bletchley Circle Alice Merren TV series (4 episodes)
2015 Ballot Monkeys Siobhan Hope
2015 Mr. Holmes Ann Kelmot Filming

Theatre

Year Title Role Notes
2001 Love In A Wood Lucy RSC Swan Theatre
2001 Hamlet Gentlewoman player RSC Stratford and Barbican
2001 The Prisoner's Dilemma Emilia RSC The Other Place and The Pit, Barbican
2002 Night of the Soul Tracy RSC The Pit, Barbican
2002 The Circle Elizabeth UK tour
2003 Arsenic and Old Lace Elaine Strand Theatre, 25 February31 May
2003 Power Louise de la Valliere Cottesloe Theatre, 3 July29 October
2004 Singer Ruby Oxford Stage Company, UK tour
2004 Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis Iphigenia Lyttelton Theatre, 22 June7 September
2005 Twelfth Night Viola West Yorkshire Playhouse, 21 September22 October
2006 See How They Run Penelope Toop UK tour
2006 The Seagull Nina Olivier Theatre, 27 June23 September
2008 The City by Martin Crimp Clair Royal Court Theatre, 24 April7 June
2008 ...some trace of her Nastasya Cottesloe (National) Theatre; 23 July21 October
20082009 The Family Reunion Mary Donmar Warehouse, 25 November 200810 January 2009
2009 Time and the Conways Kate Conway National Theatre Lyttelton; 28 April27 July
2010 The Real Thing Annie Old Vic; 10 April5 June
2011 Plenty Susan Traherne Crucible Theatre Studio, Sheffield; 826 February

Radio

Year Title Role Notes
2006 Trevor's World of Sport Carrie Guest star
20102011 I, Claudius Agrippina the Elder BBC Radio 4; 28 November 20102 January 2011
2010 The Art of Deception Jessica Brown BBC Radio 4; 2024 December 2010
2012 Miss MacKenzie Miss MacKenzie BBC Radio 4 Extra
2013 Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully Katrina Lyons BBC Radio 2

References

  1. "Congregations of the Regent House on 25 and 26 June 1999". Cambridge University Reporter.
  2. "Reporter 26/7/00: Congregation of the Regent House on 22 July 2000". Cambridge University Reporter.
  3. Rees, Jasper (21 April 2008). "Hattie Morahan: 'I decided not to think about Emma Thompson'". London: Daily Telegraph.
  4. "Theatre review: Singer at Oxford Stage Company at the Tricycle, Kilburn". Britishtheatreguide.info. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  5. Gerald Berkowitz (2004-06-24). "The Stage / Reviews / Iphigenia at Aulis". Thestage.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  6. "Theatre review: Power at RNT Cottesloe". Britishtheatreguide.info. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  7. Stage review
  8. "Theatre review: See How They Run at Richmond Theatre and touring". Britishtheatreguide.info. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  9. John Thaxter (2006-06-29). "The Stage / Reviews / The Seagull". Thestage.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  10. (August 17, 2007). Outnumbered, BBC
  11. Billington, Michael (30 April 2008). "Theatre review: The City / Royal Court, London". The Guardian.
  12. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article3758016.ece
  13. Aleks Sierz (2008-07-31). "The Stage / Reviews / ... some trace of her". Thestage.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  14. John Thaxter (2008-11-26). "The Stage / Reviews / The Family Reunion". Thestage.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  15. John Thaxter (2009-05-06). "The Stage / Reviews / Time and the Conways". Thestage.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  16. "United Agents | Hattie Morahan". United Agents. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  17. "Interview with Hattie Morahan". Lastminutetheatretickets.com. 2013-08-05. Retrieved 2014-01-29.
  18. Jones, Alice (28 July 2008). "Modern miss: Harrie Morahan is ditching bonnets in favour of cutting-edge theatre work". London: The Independent.
  19. Sunday Times interview April 2008

External links