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Amy Molloy

Amy Molloy
Born
Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
NationalityNorthern Irish
Occupation
  • Actor
Years active2008–present

Amy Molloy is a Northern Irish actress born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She resides in London.

Career

Molloy's work on screen includes; Animals, Call the Midwife, '71, The Fall and the screen adaptation of John Banville novel The Sea, as well as the Royal Court Theatre film of Cyprus Avenue for BBC Four (2020) by David Ireland, opposite veteran actor Stephen Rea. Amy Mollloy most recently played Private Sarah Jane, opposite Rory Kinnear, Anthony Boyle and Lola Pettigrew in Disney/FX series Say Nothing based on the book of the same name by Patrick Radden Keefe.

She was nominated for Best Actor in a Female Role at the Richard Harris International Film Festival 2020, for her lead role as Rosie Curran, in the short film Bound.[1] Her performance also earned her a special mention at the Cork International Film Festival in 2019, with Film Ireland remarking that her "powerful performance carries the film".[2]

Molloy plays Holliday Grainger's sister in the 2019 film Animals 2019. Variety described her performance as ‘tamed wild child’ Jean as "excellent" when the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival.[3] The Telegraph also noted her performance in their 4 star review of the film.[4]

Her theatre career includes; work for the Royal Court Theatre London, Abbey Theatre and Public Theater NYC, in the original and shocking[5][6] dark comedy, Cyprus Avenue, playing opposite actor Stephen Rea, originating the role of his daughter Julie.[7] The production was screened on BBC Four in 2019 and via Royal Court Theatre online, in 2020. It was listed in the Top 50 Plays of the 21st Century, by The Guardian.[8]

In 2022 Amy Molloy was nominated for Best Female Performance by the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland, for her solo performance in This is Paradise by writer Michael John O’Neill, at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2021 and 2022, on both Traverse theatre stages.

Receiving rave reviews, the performance and production garnered five stars by the Scotsman and many other publications and was praised across the board, variously described as a performance of “fierce, fragile strength and subtlety” , both “captivating” (The Skinny) and a “hypnotic” (The Stage), “spellbinding performance” (The Times) and “superbly performed” (The List), by “an excellent Amy Molloy” (The Guardian). The National wrote, “an exceptional Molloy..a bravura, emotionally dexterous and deeply moving performance...one of the most moving and convincing evocations of personal trauma witnessed, in 30 years as a theatre critic”.

In 2023, she teamed up with the same writer again in the play Akedah, performed at the Hampstead Theatre and winning her an OFFIE nomination for Best Lead Performance, giving a “magnetic central performance” (The Stage), with The Guardian noting, “...the tremendous Amy Molloy reappears in this O’Neill play, as the nerve-shot Gill..a dark symphony of flinches and flails”.

At the end of 2019, she appeared as Bridget in Translations by Brian Friel at the Royal National Theatre London, in a production directed by Ian Rickson, with a cast including Ciaran Hinds. That same year, her solo performance as Aoife in Cotton Fingers by Rachel Tresize at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019, won her praise for her performance of a young woman from Belfast having to travel alone to terminate a pregnancy in Wales.[9] She won a Lustrum Award for excellence and the show was listed as one of The Stage ‘Best Shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, 2019’.[10][11]

Molloy has appeared on stage at the Abbey Theatre Dublin [12] and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York in a revival and new adaptation[13][14] of Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman by Frank McGuinness, which starred Alan Rickman, Fiona Shaw and Lindsay Duncan.[15]

Molloy has also worked for the prestigious Druid Theatre Company Ireland, starring alongside Tony Award Winner Marie Mullen as her daughter Susanne, in 2024's Gaiety Theatre production of “The House” by Tom Murphy.[16] She has also played Louise Kendall[17] in the Gate Theatre, Dublin production of My Cousin Rachel, in an original dramatic adaptation by Joseph O’Connor.

In 2015, Molloy's performance in one woman show, Tea Set, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Scotland, The Pleasance Courtyard, was one of Lyn Gardner's top ticket picks and The Guardians Top Tickets,[18] describing her performance as "packing a wallop" and "perfectly judged".[19] The Scotsman ranked it as "one of the top rank performances to be seen at the Fringe" that year. Molloy was asked to write an article for the online branch of The Scotsman, on the play and its topics of loneliness, isolation and grief,[20] teaming up with Age Scotland in order to raise awareness for Silverline and other local charities.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
2013 Black Ice Moya Shine Dir. Johnny Gogan
2013 The Sea Shopgirl Sadie Dir. Stephen Brown
2014 '71 Mother in Raided House (Bernadette) Dir. Yann Demange
2019 Animals Jean Dir. Sophie Hyde
2019 Cyprus Avenue Julie Dir. Vicky Featherstone
2021 Love Without Walls Debbie Kelly Dir. Jane Gull

Television

Year Title Role Notes
2014 Call the Midwife Phoebe Doyle BBC, Episode #3.6 Trivia, 32nd actress to act out a birth on the long-running series[21]
2014 50 Ways to Kill Your Lover Lesley Howell Episode #1.7 Killer Dentist, Crime Drama
2016 The Fall Nurse Lyle BBC Two, Episode #3.1 Silence and Suffering, Dir. Allan Cubitt
2022 Bloodlands Louise Foyle BBC Episode #2.1, Dir. John East
2024 Say Nothing Private

Sarah Jane

Disney/FX, Dir. Michael Lennox, Mary Nighy, Anthony Byrne
2024 Borderline Lottie Mullen MGMplus on Prime Video, Episodes 5 and 6, Dir. Mark Brozel

References

  1. ^ "RHIFF Nominees 2020".
  2. ^ "Film Ireland Review-Irish Shorts 1:Legacies".
  3. ^ "Variety-Sundance Film Review:Animals".
  4. ^ "Animals,review-The perfect hybrid between Fleabag and Booksmart".
  5. ^ Billington, Michael (11 April 2016). "Cyprus Avenue, The most shocking play on the London stage". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  6. ^ Clapp, Susannah (17 April 2016). "Cyprus Avenue, bigotry laid absurdly bare". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  7. ^ Cavendish, Dominic (8 April 2016). "A bleakly funny tale of a Loyalist convinced his granddaughter is Gerry Adams". The Telegraph. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  8. ^ "The 50 Best Theatre Shows of the 21st Century".
  9. ^ "Irish Times-Cotton Fingers has its Irish Debut, 'here is a young woman and her circumstances'".
  10. ^ "The Stage-What are the best shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2019?".
  11. ^ "Wales in Edinburgh Festival Round Up".
  12. ^ "Abbey Theatre Biog".
  13. ^ Brantley, Ben. "John Gabriel Borkman at BAM review". New York Times. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  14. ^ "John Gabriel Borkman Review and Cast". Variety. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  15. ^ "Getty Images John Gabriel Borkman cast at BAM opening party". Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  16. ^ "There Is No Right Way To Be A Woman". 15 September 2024.
  17. ^ "Adventures of the Amazing Amy". Irish Independent. 26 November 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  18. ^ "Lyn Gardner's Top Tickets EdFringe 2015". Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  19. ^ Gardner, Lyn (23 August 2015). "Tea Set at Edinburgh Festival Review, A simple story beautifully told". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
  20. ^ Molloy, Amy (6 August 2015). "How Art Can Come From Grief, first time fringer, rated by Alan Rickman, performing in TeaSet". WOW 247. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  21. ^ "IMDb Trivia".