Zoë Wanamaker

Wanamaker's career started in the theatre. From 1976 to 1984 she was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. She won an Olivier Award for her 1979 performance in Once in a Lifetime[9] and a second for Sophocles' Electra in 1998.[10] In 1985, she played Verdi's wife Giuseppina Strepponi in the original production of After Aida. She appeared on stage playing the part of Beatrice opposite Simon Russell Beale as Benedick in the National Theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing. She has received Tony Award nominations for her performances in Piaf, Loot, Electra, and Awake and Sing!.[11][12]

In 1997, Wanamaker was the first person to speak on the stage of the newly completed replica theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, on London's South Bank.[13] This was in recognition of the role played by her father in founding the new theatre. She subsequently became Honorary President of the Globe.[14]

From May to October 2010, Wanamaker appeared in Arthur Miller's All My Sons as Kate Keller at the Apollo Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London.[15]

Wanamaker appeared in Terence Rattigan's All On Her Own from 24 October 2015 until 13 January 2016 at the Garrick Theatre. The work is a one-woman play that preceded Rattigan's Harlequinade, which she also appeared in, each night as part of a never-before-seen double bill.[16] In 2016 she appeared in the world premiere production of Elegy at the Donmar Warehouse.[17]

She returned to the Broadway stage in the 2023 Sharr White memory play Pictures From Home alongside Nathan Lane and Danny Burstein. The play is adapted from photographer Larry Sultan's photo memoir of the same name.

Starting in the early 1980s, Wanamaker began performing on screen, most notably in a number of critically acclaimed television productions, such as the BBC Television production Edge of Darkness; she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her portrayal of the love interest of a suspected serial killer in the first instalment of the Granada series Prime Suspect.[18]

Television series have included Paradise Postponed (as Charlotte Fanner-Titmuuss, 1986) and Love Hurts (1992–94) with Adam Faith. She appeared with Wendy Hiller in The Countess Alice in 1992, playing a rebellious woman searching for the truth about her past in war-torn Germany. She played Clarice, one of the dim-witted twin sisters of Lord Groan in Gormenghast (2000), a BBC television adaptation of Mervyn Peake's trilogy. She played Madam Hooch in the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001).[19] She did not reprise the role in the rest of the sequels, accusing the producers of underpaying their actors.[20]

Wanamaker portrayed Susan Harper in the BBC situation comedy My Family from 2000 to 2011.[19] She voiced a CGI character named Lady Cassandra in the Doctor Who episode "The End of the World" (2005), and reprised the role (also appearing in the flesh this time) in the episode "New Earth" (2006). Wanamaker lent her voice to the 2008 Xbox 360 game Fable II as the blind Seeress Theresa, who guides the playing character throughout the game. She returned to voice Theresa again in Fable III in 2010, and again in 2012 for Fable: The Journey.

She played Ariadne Oliver in six episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot. In 2011, she played Paula Strasberg in Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn, which depicts the making of the 1957 film The Prince and the Showgirl starring Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier. In 2015, she joined the cast of Mr. Selfridge as Princess Marie, the Russian mother-in-law of Rosalie Selfridge/Bolotoff. In 2021, she played Baghra, Alina Starkov's strict teacher and knowing adviser in Shadow and Bone.