Tara Fitzgerald

Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald (born 18 September 1967)[1][2] is a British actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage. She won the New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play in 1995 as Ophelia in Hamlet. She won the Best Actress Award at The Reims International Television Festival in 1999 for her role of Lady Dona St Columb in Frenchman's Creek. Fitzgerald has appeared in the West End production of The Misanthrope at the Comedy Theatre, and in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Donmar Warehouse. Since 2007, Fitzgerald has appeared in more than 30 episodes of the BBC television series Waking the Dead and played the role of Selyse Baratheon in the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Tara Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald in June 2012
Born	Anne Tara Cassandra Fitzgerald Callaby 18 September 1967 Cuckfield, Sussex, England
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1991–present
Spouse(s)	John Sharian ​ ​ (m. 2001; div. 2003)​

Early life

Fitzgerald is the daughter of artist Michael Callaby[3][4] and Irish portrait photographer Sarah Geraldine Fitzgerald.[3][5][6] She spent part of her childhood in the Bahamas, where her maternal grandfather ran a law firm. Her sister, Arabella, was born there. Following the family's return to England when she was three, Fitzgerald's parents separated, and her mother then married actor Norman Rodway. She has a half-sister from this marriage, Bianca Rodway.[7][8] Her father, Callaby, died when she was 11.[3] Her great-aunt was actress Geraldine Fitzgerald;[9][10] other cousins through the Fitzgerald family are the Irish novelist Jennifer Johnston[6] and Irish actress Susan Fitzgerald.[11]

Career

Film

Following her graduation from Drama Centre London, Fitzgerald appeared as the daughter of a beauty queen in the comedy Hear My Song (1991). She came to international attention in 1993 when she starred with Hugh Grant in the Australian comedy Sirens. The film landed Fitzgerald an Australian Film Institute nomination for Best Actress in a Lead Role. Two years later she again appeared with Grant in the comedy The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain. Fitzgerald appeared in a steady stream of independent feature films through the 1990s and 2000s, among them A Man of No Importance (1994), Brassed Off (1996), the Czech World War II fighter pilot drama Dark Blue World (2001), and the 2004 drama, Secret Passage (UK title: The Lion's Mouth), set during the Spanish Inquisition. In 2006, she appeared in In a Dark Place, and, in 2014, she played Miriam in Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Fitzgerald decided to expand her career into directing after becoming frustrated with what she saw as a lack of interesting roles for older actresses. She was one of 12 filmmakers selected for Film London's 2015 Microwave scheme, which provides training and mentoring to filmmakers who then pitch their ideas to a panel that selects the two best ideas for production, with budgets of £150,000 each.[12]

Stage

Fitzgerald's first major stage role came in 1992 when she appeared opposite Peter O'Toole in Our Song at the Apollo Theatre. She has alternated between stage and screen for almost two decades, with frequent theatre roles. In 1995, she starred as Ophelia in Hamlet at London's Almeida Theatre, which led to her American stage debut. The production transferred across the Atlantic and played more than 90 performances on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre.

Since then, she has played Antigone[13][14] in a national UK tour and Blanche Du Bois in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire at the Bristol Old Vic[15] and appeared in A Doll's House at the Donmar Warehouse. Fitzgerald has also appeared in Molière's The Misanthrope in 2009 at the Comedy Theatre (now the Pinter).[16] She appeared in The Winters Tale at the RSC in 2013, performed as Lady Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe theatre and appeared in Gaslight at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in 2015.[17]

Television

A veteran of more than twenty television programmes and mini-series, Fitzgerald has portrayed Victorian heroines and modern police detectives. Her first TV role was in the 1991 BBC production The Black Candle, set in Yorkshire in the 1880s. In 1992, she was featured in The Camomile Lawn. After her feature film success, she landed her first starring role in a television film, The Vacillations of Poppy Carew. She won Best Actress at the 1999 Reims International Television Festival for the costumes-and-pirates love story Frenchman's Creek. In 2006, she was featured in The Virgin Queen, before taking on the role of Dr. Eve Lockhart on Waking The Dead, joining that cast in 2007. She also had a recurring role on Game of Thrones, playing Selyse Baratheon.[18] In 2020 Tara Fitzgerald played a role as Lady Templemore in the ITV-series Belgravia, a historical drama based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Julian Fellowes.

Personal life

In 2001, Fitzgerald married the American actor-director John Sharian, who directed her in the short film The Snatching of Bookie Bob. The couple separated in May 2003 and later divorced.[19]

Fitzgerald resides in London.[20]

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Hear My Song	Nancy Doyle	Film won Best Comedy from the British Comedy Awards
1993	Sirens	Estella Campion	Australian Film Institute nomination Best Actress in a Lead Role
	Galleria	Marie	First sci-fi role
1994	A Man of No Importance	Adele Rice
1995	The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain	Elizabeth aka Betty from Cardiff
1996	Brassed Off	Gloria Mullins
1998	Conquest	Daisy MacDonald	Shot on location in Saskatchewan
	The Snatching of Bookie Bob	Silk	19-minute short directed by John Sharian, whom Fitzgerald married in 2001
1999	New World Disorder	Kris Paddock	Filmed in Luxembourg
	Childhood	Ange	Shot on location in Moscow
2000	Rancid Aluminium	Masha
2001	Dark Blue World	Susan Whitmore	Czech title: Tmavomodrý svět
2003	I Capture the Castle	Topaz Mortmain	Film won the Audience Award at the Film by the Sea International Film Festival
2004	Five Children and It	Mother	Film won Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Film Festival
	The Lion's Mouth	Clara	US title: Secret Passage
2006	In a Dark Place	Mrs. Grose	Based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw
2014	Exodus: Gods and Kings	Miriam
2015	Child 44	Inessa Nesterov
	Legend	Mrs. Shea
	We Are Happy	Rachel	17-minute short film written by Matt Winn & James Handel Directed by Matt Winn In memory of Sylvia Brown
2016	Una	Andrea
2019	The Runaways	Maggie
	The King	Hooper

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	The Black Candle	Victoria Mordaunt	Based on a novel by Catherine Cookson
1992	Six Characters in Search of an Author	Emily	BBC adaptation directed by Bill Bryden
	The Camomile Lawn	Young Polly	Based on a novel by Mary Wesley
	Anglo-Saxon Attitudes	Young Dollie Stokesay	BAFTA TV Award Best Drama Serial
1994	Fall from Grace	Catherine Pradier	Second World War drama based on the book by Larry Collins
	Cadfael: The Leper of St. Giles	Iveta de Massard	Episode 103, Book 5 of Cadfael
1995	The Vacillations of Poppy Carew	Poppy Carew	Based on the novel The Vacillations of Poppy Carew by Mary Wesley
1996	The Tenant of Wildfell Hall	Helen Graham	Based on the novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
1997	The Woman in White	Marian Fairlie	Nominated for BAFTA TV Award Best Drama Serial
	The Student Prince	Grace	US title: The Prince of Hearts
1998	Frenchman's Creek	Dona, Lady St. Columb	Won Best Actress at the 1999 Reims International Television Festival
	Little White Lies	Beth Marsh	Produced by the BBC; has early Gerard Butler role
1999	In the Name of Love	Zoe Walters	Thriller directed by Ferdinand Fairfax
2003	Love Again	Monica Jones	Directed by Susanna White
	Murder in Mind	Liz Morton	Season 3, Episode 1, Echoes
2004	Agatha Christie's Marple: The Body in the Library	Adelaide Jefferson
2005	Rose and Maloney	Annie Sorensen-Johnson	Season 2, Episode 2 (No.2.2)
	Like Father Like Son	D.I. Harkness
2006	Jane Eyre	Mrs. Reed	Distributed by BBC One
	The Virgin Queen	Kat Ashley	US title: Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen
2007	Waking the Dead	Dr. Eve Lockhart	32 episodes, seasons 6 to 9, 2007–2011
2009	U Be Dead	Debra Pemberton	ITV drama based on Maria Marchese stalker case
2011	The Body Farm	Eve Lockhart	BBC drama
2013–2015	Game of Thrones	Selyse Baratheon	Based on A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R. R. Martin
2014	In the Club	Susie	BBC drama
	The Musketeers	Marie de Medici	Episode: "The Exiles"
2016	Death in Paradise	Anouk Laban	Episode 5,6
2017	Strike	Tansy Bestigui	3 episodes
2018	Requiem	Sylvia Walsh	6 episodes
	Origin	Xavia Grey	Episode: "The Road Not Taken"
	The ABC Murders	Lady Hermione Clarke	TV Series
2020	Tangled The Series	Zhan Tiri (voice)	Episode: "Plus est en Vous"
	Belgravia (TV series)	Lady Templemore	TV Series

Theatre

Year	Title	Role	Theatre
1992	Our Song	Angela Caxton	Apollo Theatre (London) and UK tour
1995	Hamlet	Ophelia	Almeida Theatre (London) Belasco Theatre (New York)
1999	Antigone	Antigone	Old Vic, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Oxford Playhouse
2000	A Streetcar Named Desire	Blanche Du Bois	Bristol Old Vic
2004	A Doll's House	Nora Helmer	UK tour
	Clouds	Mara Hill	National UK tour
2005	And Then There Were None	Vera Claythorne	Gielgud Theatre[21]
2009	A Doll's House	Christine Lyle	Donmar Warehouse
	The Misanthrope	Marcia	Comedy Theatre
2011	Broken Glass	Sylvia Gellburg	Vaudeville Theatre[22]
2013	The Winter's Tale	Hermione	Globe Theatre London and UK tour
2019	Shipwreck		Almeida Theatre, London
	Prism	Nicola/Katie	UK tour
2020	Women Beware women	Livia	Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London

Video Games

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2018	World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth	Queen Mia Greymane (voice)
2019	Anthem	Additional Voices (voice)

References

1. "Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald". National Portrait Gallery.
2. "Tara Anne Cassandra FITZGERALD". Companies House.
3. Cerio, Gregory (12 June 1995). "Tara! Tara! Tara!". People.
4. The Traumas of Tara. HighBeam.com. 29 October 2005.
5. The International Who's Who 2004, Europa Publications, 2003, pg 542
6. Paton, Maureen (2 May 2003). "Tara Fitzgerald: Naked ambition". The Independent.
7. "From 'Reilly Ace of Spies' to Shakespeare". The Irish Times. 17 March 2001.
8. Barker, Dennis (17 March 2001). "Obituary: Norman Rodway". The Guardian.
9. Venning, Nicola (10 July 2016). "GOT star Tara Fitzgerald: I am a gold star worrier". The Express.
10. Rees, Jasper (14 December 1997). "Arts: Sheer naked talent". The Independent.
11. Coveney, Michael (13 September 2013). "Susan FitzGerald obituary". The Guardian.
12. Razaq, Rashid (30 November 2015). "Game of Thrones star Tara Fitzgerald 'driven to direct by lack of roles for older women'". Evening Standard. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
13. Butler, Robert (18 September 1999). "... and it still goes down a treat". The Independent.
14. Billington, Michael (14 October 1999). "Shaken and stirred". The Guardian.
15. Logan, Brian (25 September 2000). "Tara Fitzgerald, the fantastic flirt, A Streetcar Named Desire". The Guardian. London.
16. "Keira_Knightley, Damian_Lewis and Tara Fitzgerald to star in West End production of The Misanthrope" Archived 16 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine, playbill.com; accessed 22 October 2014.
17. Bassett, Kate (24 May 2009). "The Donmar's new Ibsen isn't so much a clever interpretation as a bit of questionable rewriting". The Independent. London. Retrieved 20 October 2014.
18. "'Game of Thrones': Meet New Arrivals for Season 3". ew.com. Retrieved 28 September 2016.
19. Roger, Sylvia (10 July 2009). "My Perfect Weekend: Tara Fitzgerald". The Telegraph. London.
20. Roger, Sylvia (10 July 2009). "My Perfect Weekend: Tara Fitzgerald". The Telegraph. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
21. And Then There Were None (2005 production); accessed 20 October 2014.
22. Antony Sher and Tara Fitzgerald lead Broken Glass, westend.broadwayworld.com; accessed 20 October 2014.

External links

• Tara Fitzgerald at IMDb
• Tara Fitzgerald collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Tara Fitzgerald interview in The Sunday Times 2017