Biography
Olwen Fouéré
Celebrated Irish actress, writer, and theater artist Olwen Fouéré was born in 1954 in Galway, the daughter of Breton parents.
Since beginning her theater career in 1976, Fouéré has performed in upwards of 80 productions, many in prominent theaters around the world. She has played lead roles at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and Gate Theatre, London’s Royal National Theatre and the West End, and the UK’s Royal Shakespeare Company, the Bouffes du Nord in Paris, Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, and the Sydney Theatre Company of Australia. Her film performances include roles in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Animals, The Northman, Joyride, The Watchers, and, most recently, The Actor. On television, she has recently appeared in The Tourist, The Crown, Holding, Derry Girls, and The Head, among other shows.
With Roger Doyle, Fouéré was artistic director of the Irish avant-garde company Operating Theatre from 1980 through 2008. She has collaborated with artists including James Coleman, Andrew Duggan, Jesse Presley Jones, and Yael Bartana and contributed to numerous publications about contemporary theater. She is the subject of the documentary Theatre in the Flesh, directed by Dara McCluskey for RTÉ's Arts Lives series. Her short film Far Calls was awarded the Grand Prize in the Experimental Film category of the Rhode Island International Film Festival 2023.
Fouéré’s many accolades include five nominations and one win of Best Actress in the Irish Times Theatre Awards, a Samuel Beckett Award and a Best Actress Award from the Dublin Theatre Festival, a Herald Archangel Award for her project RIVERRUN and her outstanding contribution to the Edinburgh Festivals, an Irish Times Theatre Awards Special Tribute for outstanding achievement and contribution to theatre in Ireland, and an honorary PhD from Dublin City University. In 2020, she was listed at number 22 on the Irish Times’ list of Ireland's greatest film actors of all time.
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Photo by Matthew Thompson.