Orla Brady
Irish actress (born 1961)
title: "Orla Brady" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1961-births", "living-people", "20th-century-irish-actresses", "21st-century-irish-actresses", "irish-atheists", "irish-expatriate-actresses-in-the-united-states", "irish-film-actresses", "irish-stage-actresses", "irish-television-actresses", "actresses-from-county-wicklow", "actresses-from-dublin-(city)", "people-from-bray,-county-wicklow", "former-roman-catholics"] description: "Irish actress (born 1961)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orla_Brady" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Irish actress (born 1961) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| image | Orla Brady 2020 1 cropped.jpg |
| caption | Brady at the 2020 Dublin International Film Festival |
| name | Orla Brady |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Dublin, Ireland |
| occupation | Actress |
| education | École Philippe Gaulier |
| years_active | 1991–present |
| spouse | |
| :: |
| image = Orla Brady 2020 1 cropped.jpg | caption = Brady at the 2020 Dublin International Film Festival | imagesize = | name = Orla Brady | birth_name = | birth_date = | birth_place = Dublin, Ireland | occupation = Actress | education = École Philippe Gaulier | years_active = 1991–present | spouse =
Orla Brady (born 28 March 1961) is an Irish theatre, television, and film actress born in Dublin. Named in 2020 by The Irish Times as one of Ireland's greatest actors, she has received seven IFTA Award (Irish Film & Television Academy) nominations, a Saturn Award nomination, the Abbey Theatre Award, and Best Actress from the Monte Carlo International Film Festival.
Brady's diverse television credits include Into the Badlands (2016-2019), Mistresses (2008-2010), Star Trek: Picard (2022), Bosch: Legacy (2025), Fringe (2008-2013), Banished (2015), Doctor Who (2013), American Odyssey (2015), American Horror Story (2018), and VisionQuest (2026). On film, Brady's credits include her Award-winning performance in A Love Divided (1999), The Luzhin Defence (2000), Silent Grace (2001), The Foreigner (2017), Rose Plays Julie (2019), and opposite Anthony Hopkins in Freud's Last Session (2023).
Brady trained at École Philippe Gaulier in Paris before an extensive stage career in Dublin and London, starring at the Royal National Theatre, the Abbey Theatre, the Gate Theatre, and on the West End. In 2019, She won the Abbey Theatre Award for her performance in On Broken Wings.
Early life and education
Orla Brady was born on 28 March 1961 in Dublin, one of four children born to Catherine and Patrick Brady. At one time, her parents were the owners of an establishment called Oak Bar, in Temple Bar, Dublin. She lived in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland, from birth until the age of seven. She was educated at a convent of the Ursulines in Cabinteely, Dublin.
Brady began training in performance in 1986, with a year in Paris; she studied at École Philippe Gaulier, and secured a place at Marcel Marceau's École Internationale de Mimodrame de Paris. As she spoke of the time in interview, "there was a lot of clowning around, buffoonery and fencing. It was then that my own style kind of blossomed."
Career
Brady began appearing regularly in television roles in the 1990's. Substantial television roles have included Star Trek: Picard (2022), Into the Badlands (2016 – 2019), Mistresses (2008 – 2010), Jo (2013), American Odyssey (2015) and Bosch: Legacy (2025).
Notable feature film work has included The Foreigner (2017) with Pierce Brosnan and Jackie Chan, Rose Plays Julie (2019) with Aiden Gillen, The Price of Desire (2015), A Love Divided (1999) and Silent Grace (2001).
She began her career touring with Balloonatics Theatre Company, in productions of Hamlet and Finnegans Wake. Returning to Dublin after studying in Paris, she performed the role of Adela in House of Bernarda Alba in 1989 and Natasha in a 1990 production of Three Sisters, both at the Gate Theatre. After moving to London, she played Kate in Brian Friel's Philadelphia, Here I Come!, which later transferred from the King's Head Theatre to the West End. Brady performed as Ghislane in Stephen Poliakoff's Blinded by the Sun, staged at the Royal National Theatre in England in 1996.
Since moving to California in 2001, Brady has also appeared in Family Law, where she played Naoise O'Niell, a series that ran for 3 years on CBS. She also starred in Nip/Tuck, a US drama about plastic surgeons (in which she played Dr. Jordan), and starred as Claire Stark in Shark (2008). In 2008, she appeared in "Firewall", the second episode of the BBC series Wallander. She also appeared as Meredith Gates, a fleecing art collector who herself is conned in the first series of the British series Hustle. Commencing in 2009, Brady portrayed Elizabeth Bishop, the wife of Walter Bishop and the mother of Peter Bishop in the Fox television series Fringe. In 2010, she played Catherine in the TV series The Deep, alongside James Nesbitt, and starred as Katie Dartmouth in the TV series Strike Back.
In 2012, she appeared in the ITV series Eternal Law as Mrs Sheringham, an angel who fell in love with a human and became mortal, and played Taryn in the Sky One series Sinbad. In late 2013, she appeared as the Countess Vera Rossakoff in the television adaptation of The Labours of Hercules, part of the final series of Agatha Christie's Poirot alongside David Suchet. Brady appeared in a special production in the BBC science-fiction series Doctor Who, the 25 December 2013 Christmas special, The Time of the Doctor (as the character Tasha Lem). In 2014, she filmed Banished, playing Anne Meredith.
In 2015, Brady appeared as architect Eileen Gray in Irish director Mary McGuckian's The Price of Desire, which was in festivals in 2016 (and found a digital distributor in 2020). From 2016 to 2019, she had a main role in the AMC martial arts drama series Into the Badlands as Lydia.
As of 2022, Brady has had a recurring role in the science fiction television series, Star Trek: Picard, as Laris, wife of the now-deceased Zhaban (Jamie McShane), the two being former members of the Romulan Tal Shiar and now, workers in the wine production and home of Picard at his Chateau.
Awards and recognition
Brady won the 1999 award for Best Actress at the Monte Carlo International Film and Television Festival for her starring role as Sheila Cloney in the RTÉ-BBC co-production, A Love Divided . In 2020, Brady was listed as number 43 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's 50 best film actors. Brady was also nominated several times for best actress by the Irish Film and Television Academy.
Modelling images used in artwork
In the 1980s, while she was in her mid-20s, Brady modelled for an artists' guide publication. She recalled in 2008 that the studio shoot had paid about £50 for her day's work, at a time when she welcomed the income, with her acting career yet to take off. Photographed in a number of dancing poses, the resulting series of figure studies featuring Brady appeared in the Illustrator's Figure Reference Manual. More than 25 years later, it was noted that one of these images of Brady, posing as part of a dancing couple, was the basis of the main figures in a widely-known painting, The Singing Butler, by artist Jack Vettriano. As stated by Vettriano in 2013, Brady's image had "later inspired [his] most famous painting, The Singing Butler". The identification of the pose study in the Illustrator's Manual with Vettriano's painting led to media reporting that he "owed his composition in part" to that publication. Vettriano, his agent, and Brady herself, have all stated that his work makes use of the image in a way that adheres to norms of artistic practice and was in line with the publisher's intent.
Personal life
In 2001, Brady moved to Los Angeles, where she met English photographer Nick Brandt, whom she married in December 2002 in the Chyulu Hills of Kenya. She has discussed in interviews that she originally left Ireland as she found it "a repressive place to be a woman" at the time, with little opportunity. The 2015 marriage equality and 2018 abortion referendums, as well as the expanding Irish industry, changed her mind, making her realise "Oh, this is a different Ireland and it accepts me now." Brady had a "Catholic upbringing", but as of 2002 considered herself an atheist.
Theatre
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Company | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | Rebecca | Rebecca de Winter | Lyric Players, Belfast | Charles Nowosielski | play by Daphne Du Maurier |
| :: |
Filmography
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Orla_Brady_in_2015.jpg" caption="Brady in 2015"] ::
Film
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Words Upon the Window Pane | Vanessa | |
| 1999 | ** | Sheila Kelly Cloney | |
| 2000 | ** | Aunt Anna | |
| 2001 | Silent Grace | Eileen | |
| 2002 | Fogbound | Ann | |
| 2006 | Last Night | Lucy | Short film |
| 2007 | 32A | Jean Brennan | |
| 2007 | How About You | Kate Harris | |
| 2013 | Wayland's Song | Grace | |
| 2015 | ** | Eileen Gray | |
| 2017 | The Foreigner | Mary Hennessy | |
| 2019 | A Girl from Mogadishu | Emer Costello | |
| 2019 | Rose Plays Julie | Ellen | |
| 2022 | The Other Me | Marina | |
| 2023 | Freud's Last Session | Janie Moore | |
| :: |
Television
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1993 | Minder | Bank Teller | Episode: "Opportunity Knocks and Bruises" |
| 1994 | ** | Amy | Episode: "No Job for an Amateur" |
| 1994 | Absolutely Fabulous | Nurse Mary | Episode: "Hospital" |
| 1994 | ** | Sister Josephine | Episode: "1.2" |
| 1995 | Dangerfield | Diane Foster | 2 episodes |
| 1995 | New Voices | Ruby | Episode: "The Treasure of Zavimbi" |
| 1995 | Casualty | Wendy | Episode: "Outside Bulawayo" |
| 1995–1996 | Out of the Blue | D.S. Rebecca "Becky" Bennett | 12 episodes |
| 1996 | Pie in the Sky | Kit Kelly de Goris | Episode: "Irish Stew" |
| 1996 | ** | Aoife | Episode: "The Christmas Lunch Incident" |
| 1997 | ** | Marcella Duggan | Television film |
| 1997 | Noah's Ark | Clare Somers | 9 episodes |
| 1998 | Wuthering Heights | Cathy | Television film |
| 1999 | Pure Wickedness | Jenny Meadows | 4 episodes |
| 1999 | ** | Kathleen Fitzpatrick | Television movie |
| 2000–2002 | Family Law | Naoise O'Neill | 43 episodes |
| 2003 | Servants | Flora Ryan | 6 episodes |
| 2003 | ** | Angela Jahnsen | Television movie |
| 2003 | Chris Ryan's Strike Back | Katie Dartmouth | 2 episodes |
| 2004 | Hustle | Meredith Gates | Episode: "Picture Perfect" |
| 2004 | Nip/Tuck | Dr. Monica Jordan | Episode: "Christian Troy" |
| 2004 | Lawless | Liz Bird | Television movie |
| 2004–2005 | Proof | Maureen Boland | 8 episodes |
| 2005 | Revelations | Nora Webber | 6 episodes |
| 2005 | Empire | Atia | 2 episodes |
| 2005 | World of Trouble | Joan Denny | Television movie |
| 2006 | Sixty Minute Man | Kate Henderson | Television movie |
| 2006 | Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise | Lilly Summers | Television movie |
| 2007 | Protect and Serve | Dr. Lorna Herrera | Television movie |
| 2007–2008 | Shark | Claire Stark | 4 episodes |
| 2008 | Wallander | Ella Lindfeldt | Episode: "Firewall" |
| 2008–2010 | Mistresses | Siobhan Dillon | 16 episodes |
| 2010 | ** | Catherine Donnelly | 5 episodes |
| 2010–2012 | Fringe | Elizabeth Bishop | 5 episodes |
| 2012 | Sinbad | Taryn | 9 episodes |
| 2012 | Eternal Law | Mrs. Sheringham | 6 episodes |
| 2013 | Jo | Beatrice Dormont | 8 episodes |
| 2013 | Agatha Christie's Poirot | Countess Rossakoff | Episode: "The Labours of Hercules" |
| 2013 | Doctor Who | Tasha Lem | Episode: "The Time of the Doctor" |
| 2015 | Banished | Anne Meredith | 7 episodes |
| 2015 | American Odyssey | Sofia Tsaldari | 9 episodes |
| 2015–2019 | Into the Badlands | Lydia | 25 episodes |
| 2018 | Collateral | Phoebe Dyson | 3 episodes |
| 2019 | American Horror Story: 1984 | Dr. Karen Hopple | 4 episodes |
| 2020–2023 | Star Trek: Picard | Laris / Tallinn | 11 episodes |
| 2020 | The South Westerlies | Kate Ryan | 6 episodes |
| 2022 | Death in Paradise | Maggie Harper | Episode: "11.8" |
| 2025 | Bosch: Legacy | Siobhan Murphy | 5 episodes |
| 2026 | F.R.I.D.A.Y. | ||
| :: |
Notes
References
References
- Philby, Charlotte. (5 January 2008). "How Do I Look?: Orla Brady, actress, 46". [[The Independent]].
- Ainsworth, John. (2016). "The Day of the Doctor and the Time of the Doctor". Doctor Who: The Complete History.
- O'Callaghan, Miriam. (12 January 2014). "Interview with Orla Brady". [[Raidió Teilifís Éireann]].
- (3 April 2016). "Gray matters: Actress Orla Brady on playing Irish designer Eileen Gray". Irish Independent.
- Clarke, Donald. (15 September 2021). "Orla Brady: 'I felt Ireland was a very repressive place to be a woman'". The Irish Times.
- Brady, Tara. (30 May 2016). "Orla Brady: from Dublin to Hollywood to kicking ass in the Badlands". The Irish Times.
- Cordero, Rosy. (2024-03-19). "'Bosch: Legacy' Adds Andrea Cortés, Tommy Martinez & Dale Dickey Among 5 To Recur In Season 3".
- "The 50 best Irish films ever made, in order". The Irish Times.
- Balfour, Brad. (11 June 2020). "Actor Orla Brady Brings Masterful Architect Eileen Gray to Life Through ''The Price Of Desire'' — Director Mary McGuckian's Re-Issued Film". The Irish Examiner.
- "''The House of Bernarda Alba''". Irish Theatre Institute.
- "''Three Sisters''". Irish Theatre Institute.
- Wolf, Matt. (23 September 1996). "Review: ''Blinded by the Sun''".
- "Orla Brady Credits". tvguide.com.
- (2008-11-30). "BBC One Programmes: ''Wallander'' {{!}} 'Firewall'".
- "Meet Mrs. Bishop: Orla Brady Joins ''Fringe''".
- (10 January 2012}}). "Raw Law [Reviewed: ''Eternal Law'']". RTÉ.
- (9 December 2014). "Agatha Christie's ''Poirot'': Season 13". KPBS Public Media.
- (11 December 2013). "Watch: Irish actress Orla Brady makes her ''Doctor Who'' debut in 'Time of the Doctor' trailer". Entertainment.ie.
- "''Banished'' - Cast & Characters". BBC.
- (2022). "Orla Brady: Academy member".
- Parker, Ryan. (2022-04-04). "'Picard' Star Orla Brady Credits Character's Total Sense of Self to "Reasonably Rare" Female Director".
- Donaldson, Mark. (24 December 2022). "Every Picard TNG Love Interest (Before Laris)". [[Screen Rant]].
- Parker, Ryan. (April 4, 2022). "''Picard'' Star Orla Brady Credits Character's Total Sense of Self to 'Reasonably Rare' Female Director". [[HollywoodReporter.com]].
- "Brady wins award". The Irish Times.
- (2020-06-13). "The 50 greatest Irish film actors of all time – in order". [[The Irish Times]].
- (7 February 2023). "The scandal and success behind Fife artist Jack Vettriano's ''The Singing Butler''". [[The Courier (Dundee).
- (1987). "Illustrator's Figure Reference Manual". Bloomsbury.
- (1 January 2008). "Identity of ''The Singing Butler'' muse revealed".
- Jones, Sam. (4 October 2005). "Vettriano brought to book by illustrator's manual". [[The Guardian]].
- Allen Smith, Warren. (2002). "Celebrities in Hell: A Guide to Hollywood's Atheists, Agnostics, Skeptics, Free Thinkers, and More". Barricade Books Inc..
- (15 February 2004). "If it's bad in Afghanistan, it's abysmal in Hollywood". The Observer.
- (2 May 2020). "The 50 best Irish films ever made, in order". The Irish Times.
- (December 1996). "BBC One London Schedule, Wed 25th Dec 1996, 22:00 Regional Variations – ''The Vicar of Dibley'', 'The Christmas Lunch Incident': Contributors". BBC.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::