Nenagh link to Oscar nominee
Thurles-born Kerry Condon, who has been nominated for an Oscar for her role in the hit film, The Banshees of Inisherin, was a talented actor since childhood growing up in the north Tipperary town.
She attended the local Ursuline Convent where her speech and drama teacher was Elizabeth Ryan from Newtown, Nenagh, who described Condon as “a very talented actor”, even in her teenage years.
The Banshees of Inisherin is a record-breaking film with a total of nine Oscar nominations, including Condon (40), who has been nominated in the category for best performance by an actress in a supporting role.
NOMINATED
She has been nominated along with her co-stars Colin Farrell, Barry Keoghan, and Brendan Gleeson. Condon's nomination comes for her portrayal of Siobhán Súillbhean in the critically acclaimed Irish film.
Among its total of a whopping nine nominations, the Banshees of Inisherin is up for best picture and original screenplay.
Condon has carved out a distinguised career in stage and film over two and a half decades. She was the youngest actress to play Ophelia in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. In 2001, at the age of 18, she landed the role of Mairead in The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh which she performed at the Royal Shakespeare Company and in 2006 at the Lyceum Theatre in New York. In 2009, she appeared in another play by Martin McDonagh, The Cripple of Inishmaan, for which she won a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance.
MOVIE ROLES
Condon's movie roles include Kate Kelly, Ned Kelly's outlaw sister, in 2003's Ned Kelly and an appearance in the 2003 Irish independent film Intermission with Cillian Murphy, Kelly Macdonald, and Colin Farrell.
She was in the 2005 Jet Li action-thriller Unleashed and in the same year co-starred as Octavia of the Julii, sister of the Roman Emperor Augustus, in the HBO/BBC series, Rome.
She later appeared as Masha, a Tolstoian, in The Last Station, a film about the last months of Tolstoy's life with Helen Mirren and Christopher Plummer, before playing jockey Rosie Shanahan in the 2012 TV series Luck. Condon appeared in the season four premiere of the post-apocalyptic zombie drama The Walking Dead in 2013. She voices the artificial intelligence F.R.I.D.A.Y., Tony Stark's replacement for J.A.R.V.I.S. in the Marvel Studios films Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame.
The 95th Academy Awards will be presented on March 12, in a ceremony held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.