Sinéad Cusack
Sinéad Cusack
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Sinéad Cusack

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Sinéad Cusack

Sinéad Moira Cusack (/ʃɪˈnd/ 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 Tony Award nominations: once for Best Leading Actress in Much Ado About Nothing (1985), and again for Best Featured Actress in Rock 'n' Roll (2008). She has also received five 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.

Cusack was born Jane Moira Cusack in Dalkey, County Dublin, the daughter of actress Maureen Cusack (born Mary Margaret Kiely) and actor Cyril Cusack. 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.

Her first acting roles were at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In 1975, she moved to London and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), starring in Dion Boucicault's London Assurance in the West End. Cusack's work with the RSC continued with an award-winning performance as Celia in As You Like It which included the Clarence Derwent Award and her first 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 Derek Jacobi, she played Roxane in Anthony Burgess' translation of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac and Beatrice in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Terry Hands. Much Ado was first produced at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1982–83, then moved to London's Barbican Theatre for the 1983–1984 season where it was joined by Cyrano, before both plays transferred to New York's Gershwin Theatre from October 1984 to January 1985, for which Cusack received a 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, Jeremy Irons, appeared in a Shakespeare Winter's Eve, a major fundraiser for the Riverside Shakespeare Company in New York, along with other members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Following the Broadway run, the plays toured the US, making stops in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Cusack's connection with the Royal Shakespeare Company continued with a series of leading roles include Portia in The Merchant of Venice opposite David Suchet, Lady Macbeth opposite Jonathan Pryce in Macbeth and Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra in Stratford-upon-Avon and at London's 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 Sebastian Barry in 1998, in which she played the principal role of Mai O'Hara in performances in Ireland, on Broadway and at the National Theatre. For this, she won the 1998 Evening Standard Theatre Awards for Best Actress, the 1998 Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress and her fourth Olivier Award nomination for Best Actress. In 2006/7 she starred with Rufus Sewell in Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll at the Royal Court Theatre in London which transferred to the West End and Broadway, winning Cusack her fifth Olivier Award nomination and her second Tony Award nomination.[citation needed]

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