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Harriet Jane Morahan (born 7 October 1978) is an English actress. Her roles include Sister Clara in The Golden Compass (2007), Gale Benson in The Bank Job (2008), Alice in The Bletchley Circle (2012–2014), Ann in Mr. Holmes (2015), Rose Coyne in My Mother and Other Strangers (2016), Agathe/The Enchantress in Beauty and the Beast (2017), Corinne Aldrich in Luther: The Fallen Sun, Louise in Hijack, and Caroline Burkett in Fool Me Once.
Hattie Morahan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Harriet Jane Morahan 7 October 1978 Lambeth, London, England |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Partner | Blake Ritson |
| Children | 2 |
| Parents |
|
| Relatives | Andy Morahan (half-brother)[1] |
Morahan was born in 1978, the younger daughter of director Christopher Morahan and actress Anna Carteret. Her older sister Rebecca is a theatre director,[2] and her half-brother Andy is a music video and film director.[1] As a child, she attended parties thrown by Sir Laurence Olivier,[3] who once helped her with her mathematics homework.[4]
Morahan was educated at Frensham Heights School. She wanted to attend Newcastle University, but her father encouraged her to follow older sister Rebecca to New Hall, Cambridge,[5][6] where she graduated with a BA in English in 2000.[7]
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Morahan made her professional debut at 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 (that December) 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.[8] 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.[9]
In July 2005, she appeared again at the National in Nick Dear's Power, staged in the Cottesloe Theatre[10] and also won acclaim at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, in September 2005 playing Viola in Ian Brown's production of Twelfth Night.[11]
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.[12] In the same year, for her Lyttelton Theatre performance as Nina in Katie Mitchell's staging of Chekhov's The Seagull,[13] she was awarded second prize in the Ian Charleson Awards 2007.
TV credits include Bodies and BBC One's Outnumbered,[14] where she portrays recurring 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 she played a mounted policewoman in the ITV comedy drama pilot Bike Squad.
Giving a career enhancing performance, she also played Elinor Dashwood in BBC One's three-part adaptation, by Andrew Davies, of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility, first broadcast on New Year's Day 2008.[15] On 13 June 2008, she won Best Actress at the 14th Shanghai Television Festival for her performance.
She worked again with director Katie Mitchell, co-starring with Benedict Cumberbatch in The City, a new, darkly comic mystery play by Martin Crimp,[16] 24 April – 7 June 2008.[3]
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,[17] while later in the year she played Mary in T.S. Eliot's The Family Reunion at the Donmar Warehouse.[18] 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 [19] 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 to 26 July 2012, she played the lead role of Nora, opposite Dominic Rowan's Torvald, in a 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 [20]/ She also received a nomination for an Olivier Award for her performance.
From 8 August to 26 October 2013, Morahan reprised her role as Nora Helmer alongside Dominic Rowan, who returned as her husband Torvald, at the Duke of York's Theatre London.[21] The production then transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music, NY, in 2014.[22]
In July 2015, Morahan played the role of doomed mother Elizabeth Aldridge in the BBC's two-part television adaptation of Sadie Jones' debut novel The Outcast.[23] The Guardian's Julia Raeside was impressed with Morahan's portrayal, writing, "She is so perfectly cast, the lack of her is palpable on screen. We miss her too."[24] The following year, Morahan starred in the five-part BBC series My Mother and Other Strangers.[25]
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Morahan has been in a relationship with actor and director Blake Ritson since they met at Cambridge University in the late 1990s; the pair have been engaged since the mid 2000s.[26] Morahan gave birth to the couple's daughter in August 2016[25] and to their son in 2020.
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 |
| New Tricks | Totty | TV series, 1 Episode | |
| 2005 | Bodies | Beth Lucas-Hall | TV series, 7 episodes |
| 2007–2011 | Outnumbered | Jane | |
| 2007 | The Golden Compass | Nurse Clara | |
| 2008 | Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple | Elaine Fortescue | TV series, Episode: “A Pocket Full of Rye” |
| Sense and Sensibility | Elinor Dashwood | BBC, TV Mini-Series, 3 episodes | |
| Bike Squad | WPC Julie Cardigan | ||
| Trial & Retribution | Sally Lawson | TV series, “Kill the King: Part 1 & 2” | |
| The Bank Job | Gale Benson | ||
| 2010 | Lark Rise to Candleford | 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, Episode: "Schooled in Murder" |
| Having You | Lucy | Feature film | |
| Summer in February | Laura Knight | Feature film | |
| 2014 | The Bletchley Circle | Alice Merren | “Blood on Their Hands: Part 1 & 2”, “Uncustomed Goods: Part 1 & 2” |
| 2015 | Mr. Holmes | Ann Kelmot | |
| Ballot Monkeys | Siobhan Hope | ||
| The Outcast | Elizabeth Aldridge | TV series (1 episode) | |
| Arthur and George | Miss Jean Leckie | TV series | |
| 2016 | My Mother and Other Strangers | Rose Coyne | |
| Alice Through the Looking Glass | Queen Elsemere | Feature film | |
| 2017 | Beauty and the Beast | Agathe/Enchantress, Narrator | |
| 2018 | Inside No. 9 | Amber | Series 4, episode 1: "Zanzibar" |
| 2019 | The Sleepers (Bez vědomí) | Susanne Clayton | |
| Official Secrets | Yvonne Ridley | ||
| 2020 | Enola Holmes | Lady Tewkesbury | Netflix Feature Film |
| 2022 | Operation Mincemeat | Iris Montagu | Feature Film |
| 2023 | Luther: The Fallen Sun | Corinne Aldrich | Netflix Feature Film |
| Hijack | British Foreign Minister | Apple TV+ Original | |
| 2024 | Fool Me Once | Caroline Burkett | Netflix Limited Series |
| TBA | The Gilded Age | Lady Sarah Vere | Season 3 |
Theatre
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Love in a Wood | Lucy | RSC Swan Theatre |
| Hamlet | Gentlewoman player | RSC Stratford and Barbican | |
| The Prisoner's Dilemma | Emilia | RSC The Other Place and The Pit, Barbican | |
| 2002 | Night of the Soul | Tracy | RSC The Pit, Barbican |
| The Circle | Elizabeth | UK tour | |
| 2003 | Arsenic and Old Lace | Elaine | Strand Theatre, 25 February – 31 May |
| Power | Louise de la Valliere | Cottesloe Theatre, 3 July – 29 October | |
| 2004 | Singer | Ruby | Oxford Stage Company, UK tour |
| Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis | Iphigenia | Lyttelton Theatre, 22 June – 7 September | |
| 2005 | Twelfth Night | Viola | West Yorkshire Playhouse, 21 September – 22 October |
| 2006 | See How They Run | Penelope Toop | UK tour |
| The Seagull | Nina | Olivier Theatre, 27 June – 23 September | |
| 2008 | The City by Martin Crimp | Clair | Royal Court Theatre, 24 April – 7 June |
| ...some trace of her | Nastasya | Cottesloe (National) Theatre; 23 July – 21 October | |
| 2008–2009 | The Family Reunion | Mary | Donmar Warehouse, 25 November 2008 – 10 January 2009 |
| 2009 | Time and the Conways | Kate Conway | National Theatre Lyttelton; 28 April – 27 July |
| 2010 | The Real Thing | Annie | Old Vic; 10 April – 5 June |
| 2011 | Plenty | Susan Traherne | Crucible Theatre Studio, Sheffield; 8–26 February |
| 2012 | A Doll's House | Nora Helmer | Young Vic; 29 June – 26 July |
| 2012 | The Dark Earth and the Night Sky | Helen Thomas | [Almeida Theatre]]; November - January |
| 2017 | Anatomy of a Suicide | Carol | Royal Court Theatre, 3 June – 8 July[27] |
| 2019 | Grief Is The Thing With Feathers | Mother | Barbican Centre; 25 March - 13 April |
| 2019 | Orpheus Descending | Lady Torrance | Menier Chocolate Factory; May - July |
| 2023 | Ghosts | Helene Alving | Sam Wanamaker Playhouse; November - January |
Radio
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Trevor's World of Sport | Carrie | Guest star |
| 2010–2011 | I, Claudius | Agrippina the Elder | BBC Radio 4; 28 November 2010 – 2 January 2011 |
| 2010 | The Art of Deception | Jessica Brown | BBC Radio 4; 20–24 December 2010 |
| 2012 | Miss MacKenzie | Miss MacKenzie | BBC Radio 4 Extra |
| A Month in the Country | Alice Keach | adapted by Dave Sheasby from JL Carr's novella: BBC Radio 4 Saturday Drama series | |
| 2013 | Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully | Katrina Lyons | BBC Radio 2 |
| 2015–2017 | Doctor Who: Doom Coalition | Helen Sinclair | Big Finish Productions |
| 2018 | Tracks – Chimera | Dr. Helen Ash | BBC Radio 4 |
| 2018–2019 | Doctor Who: Ravenous | Helen Sinclair | Big Finish Productions |
| 2020–2022 | Doctor Who: Stranded | ||
| 2022 | Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures: What lies inside? | ||
| Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Connections | |||
| 2023 | Enduring Love[28] | Clarissa | BBC Radio 4 |
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