Fenella Woolgar

Fenella Woolgar is an English actress.

Woolgar is the youngest daughter of Maureen (née McCann) and Michael Woolgar. Her brother Dermot is a barrister and her sister Claudia works in the arts in Ireland. Her early years were spent in New Canaan, Connecticut, before the family returned to the United Kingdom in 1976. Her father worked as an economist for many years and the family travelled to Kuwait and Sharjah. Her mother is of Irish heritage. She was educated at Mayfield Convent, Durham University, and then Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). At university she directed Murder in the Cathedral in Durham Cathedral, acted and was a member of the Durham Revue.

She graduated from RADA in 1999 and on leaving did mostly theatre, particularly at the Royal Exchange, Manchester until she got her break in 2002 playing Agatha in Stephen Fry’s film Bright Young Things. She has subsequently gone on to work with Mike Leigh, Conor McPherson and Woody Allen. She played Agatha Christie in Doctor Who in 2008. She has recently worked in theatre at the National Theatre and The Old Vic. She won the Clarence Derwent Award for Best Supporting Actress in the West End in 2013 and the Sunday Times Culture Award for Stage Performance of the Year 2014. She is regularly heard on the radio and was nominated for Best Actress on the radio in 2013 for An American Rose in which she played Rosemary Kennedy. She played the title role in Mrs Dalloway for BBC Radio 4 and Edith Wharton in both The Jinx Element and Ethan Frome. She has narrated several audiobooks and was nominated for Audio Book of the Year 2013.

She married Dr Robert Harland in 2006. The couple have three children: Kit, born 2007, and Tristan and Gabriel, born 2009. She paints and speaks Italian.

Biography from the wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA