Sinéad Cusack

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Sinéad Cusack
Cusack in 2021
Born
Jane Moira Cusack

(1948-02-18) 18 February 1948 (age 76)[1]
Dalkey, Dublin, Ireland
OccupationActress
Years active1967–present
Spouse
​
(m. 1978)​
Children3, including Max Irons and Richard Boyd Barrett
Parents
Relatives

Sinéad Moira Cusack (/ʃɪˈneɪd/ shin-AYD; born 18 February 1948) is an Irish actress. Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, before moving to London in 1969 to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She has won the Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for her performance in Sebastian Barry's Our Lady of Sligo.

Cusack has received two

Olivier Award nominations for As You Like (1981), The Maid's Tragedy (also 1981), The Taming of the Shrew (1983), Our Lady of Sligo (1998) and Rock 'n' Roll (2007). In 2020, she was listed at number 25 on The Irish Times' list of Ireland's greatest film actors.[2]

Early life

Cusack was born Jane Moira Cusack in Dalkey, County Dublin, the daughter of actress Maureen Cusack (born Mary Margaret Kiely) and actor Cyril Cusack.[3] She is the sister of actresses Sorcha Cusack, Niamh Cusack, and half-sister to Catherine Cusack. Her father was born in South Africa, to an Irish father and an English mother, and had worked with Micheál Mac Liammóir at Dublin's Gate Theatre.[4]

Career

Theatre

Her first acting roles were at the

Olivier Award nomination. She secured a second Olivier Award nomination for her performance in The Maid's Tragedy by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in 1981, followed two years later with a third Olivier Award nomination as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.[citation needed
]

She made her Broadway debut in 1984 performing in repertory with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starring opposite

Tony Award nomination for her performance as Beatrice, and costar Derek Jacobi won the award for his Benedick. The production of Cyrano de Bergerac was later filmed in 1985.[citation needed
]

During this period, Cusack and her husband,

Haymarket Theatre
in the West End.

In 1990, Cusack, in the role of Masha, joined two of her sisters, Niamh (as Irina) and Sorcha (as Olga), and her father, Cyril Cusack (as Chebutykin) for a well-received production of Anton Chekhov's tragi-comedy The Three Sisters in a new version by Frank McGuinness, directed by Adrian Noble at the Gate Theatre, Dublin before transferring to the Royal Court Theatre in London. The production also featured Niamh's husband Finbar Lynch as Solenyi and Lesley Manville as Natasha. The production won the three real-life sisters the Irish Life Award in 1992.

One of her best known stage roles was Our Lady of Sligo by

Tony Award nomination.[citation needed
]

In 2015, Cusack returned to Ireland's

Irish Times Theatre Award for Best Actress.[citation needed
]

Film and television

Cusack starred with Peter Sellers in the film Hoffman (1970). She guest starred in an episode of The Persuaders! (1971), a TV series starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, as Jenny Lindley, a wealthy heiress who suspects that a man claiming to be her dead brother is in fact an impostor. In 1975 she made three appearances in the TV series Quiller as the character 'Roz'.

Cusack and her husband Jeremy Irons appeared together in the film

IFTA Award for her performance in John Boorman's drama film Queen and Country (2014), which premièred at the Cannes Film Festival.[citation needed
]

Further starring roles include lead roles in Oliver's Travels (1995), Have Your Cake And Eat It (1997) for which she won the RTS Award for Best Actress and Frank McGuinness's The Hen House (1989) for BBC Television. She starred in the title role of George du Maurier's Trilby (1976), in an adaptation for the BBC's Play of the Month, with Alan Badel as Svengali. She also starred in the BBC mini-series North and South (2004, from the novel by Elizabeth Gaskell) as Mrs. Thornton. Cusack starred in the BBC sitcom Home Again (2006) and appeared in the TV series Camelot (2011), which ran for one season. Cusack had featured roles in the mini-series The Deep (2014) and the series Marcella (2016), an eight-episode murder mystery.

Publications

Along with other actresses, including Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson and Harriet Walter, Cusack contributed to a book by Carol Rutter called Clamorous Voices: Shakespeare's Women Today (1994).[5] The book analysed modern acting interpretations of female Shakespearean roles.

Personal life

Cusack married British actor Jeremy Irons in 1978, and they have two sons, Samuel James and Maximilian Paul.[citation needed]

Prior to marrying Irons, Cusack gave birth to a son in 1967 and placed the boy for adoption. In 2007, a journalist for the Irish

People Before Profit Alliance's candidate for Dún Laoghaire constituency.[8][9] She also joined him in the count centre as he awaited the outcome of the 2011 general election, at which he was elected to Dáil Éireann.[10] In May 2013, Boyd Barrett revealed that theatre director Vincent Dowling was his biological father.[11]

Cusack had a short relationship with the footballer George Best in 1971.[12] While married to Irons, she had a long relationship with playwright Tom Stoppard but made it clear that she wanted to remain married to her husband. After her reunion with Boyd Barrett she also wanted to spend time with him in Dublin rather than with Stoppard in France where they shared a house.[13]

Cusack is a patron of the Burma Campaign UK, the London-based group campaigning for human rights and democracy in Burma.

In 1998, Cusack was named, along with her husband, in a list of the biggest private financial donors to the British Labour Party.[14] In August 2010, Cusack signed the "Irish artists' pledge to boycott Israel" initiated by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.[15]

Filmography

Awards and nominations

Year Award Work Category
1981
Clarence Derwent Award
for Best Supporting Actress 		As You Like It Won
1981
Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
 As You Like It Nominated
1981
Olivier Award for Best Actress
in a Revival 		The Maid's Tragedy Nominated
1983
Olivier Award for Best Actress
in a Revival 		The Taming of the Shrew Nominated
1985 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play Much Ado About Nothing Nominated
1998
RTS Television Award
for Best Actor - Female 		Have You Cake And Eat It Won
1998
Evening Standard Award
for Best Actress 		Our Lady of Sligo Won
1999
Critics' Circle Award
for Best Actress 		Our Lady of Sligo Won
1999
Olivier Award for Best Actress
in a Play 		Our Lady of Sligo Nominated
2007
Olivier Award for Best Actress
in a Play 		Rock 'n' Roll Nominated
2007 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play Rock 'n' Roll Nominated
2007
IFTA Award
for Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Film 		The Tiger's Tail Nominated
2014
IFTA Award
for Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Film 		The Sea Won
2015
IFTA Award
for Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Film 		Queen and Country Nominated
2015
Irish Times Theatre Awards
for Best Actress 		Our Few And Evil Days Won

References

  1. ISBN 9780750994521
    .
  2. ^ "The 50 greatest Irish film actors of all time – in order". The Irish Times.
  3. ISBN 9781558623200
    .
  4. ^ Nick Curtis (14 July 2006). "Cusack continues to Rock – Theatre & Dance – Arts – London Evening Standard". Standard.co.uk. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
  5. ISBN 978-0-7043-4145-6
    .
  6. ^ McConnell, Daniel (13 May 2007). "Red hot Richard is son of actress". Independent.ie. Retrieved 6 July 2013.
  7. ^ PR-Inside.com Entertainment News » Irons' Wife Reunited with Adopted Son
  8. ^ Taafe, Danielle (27 June 2007). "Cusack reunited with son she gave up for adoption". The Independent. Archived from the original on 28 September 2008. Retrieved 14 August 2007.
  9. ^ Richard BOYD BARRETT Archived 16 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Ingle, Róisín. "Fresh-minted TDs emerge from 'Group of Death'". 28 February 2011. The Irish Times.
  11. ^ Lynch, Donal (12 May 2013). "Dowling was my father, his death saddens me". Sunday Independent.
  12. ^ Rutherford, Adrian (24 April 2018). "Play turns spotlight on George Best's 'lost weekend' with Sinead Cusack". Belfast Telegraph.
  13. ^ Roche, Anthony. "Tom Stoppard; A Life-A great biography of a great playwright". www.irishtimes.com. Retrieved 24 October 2020.
  14. ^ "'Luvvies' for Labour". BBC News. 30 August 1998. Retrieved 23 May 2010.
  15. ^ "Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Irish artists' pledge to boycott Israel". IPSC. 12 August 2010. Retrieved 26 September 2010.

External links

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