Eva Birthistle
Encyclopedia
Eva Birthistle is an Irish
actress, best known for her role in Ae Fond Kiss
. She won the London Film Critics Circle
British Actress of the Year award in 2004 and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role (Film) award.
, Republic of Ireland
, the daughter of a farmer
, the family moved to Derry
, Northern Ireland
, when she was 14. She was raised Roman Catholic. As a teenager, Eva went to Dublin to study acting at the The Gaiety School of Acting
.
On 31 December 2006 she married her longtime partner, drummer for Derry band Jetplane Landing
and occasional actor, Raife Burchell. The couple live in London
, England
.
, one of Irish channel RTE
's highest-rated shows. She stayed for three years until 1998. Other TV work followed, until she was offered her first feature film in 1997, All Souls' Day by Alan Gilsenan
. She played a variety of roles in Irish films, including Drinking Crude (1997), co-starring Colin Farrell
, and TV movie Miracle at Midnight
(1998), with Mia Farrow
.
In 2002, Eva appeared in two dramas about the same challenging subject, Bloody Sunday
: the documentary-style TV drama Bloody Sunday, starring James Nesbitt
, and Sunday, written by Jimmy McGovern
.
In 2003, she appeared in the TV series Trust
before starring in arguably her most prominent part so far as Roisin Hanlon in the Ken Loach
movie Ae Fond Kiss...
(2003/04), which won her many awards, including the 2005 London Critics Circle Film Award as "British Actress of the Year". In 2007, following objections from some Irish filmmakers and actors at being nominated for "Best British" awards, it was decided that Irish filmmakers and actors would only be eligible for awards which did not have the word "British" in the title. To that end the titles of several of the awards were amended to exclude the word British. The Attenborough Award now goes to the best British or Irish film of the year, while the two British Supporting Actor awards lost the word "British" from their title so that British (English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish) or Irish actors in supporting roles all became eligible.
She appeared in Neil Jordan
's Breakfast on Pluto
, Ol Parker
's Imagine Me & You
and Save Angel Hope by Lukas Erni in 2005 and in Brian Kirk
's Middletown in 2006.
Birthistle starred as human rights lawyer Jane Lavery in the TV conspiracy drama The State Within
in 2006. In late 2007 she featured as Rembrandt's wife Saskia van Uylenburg
in the historical drama Nightwatching
by Peter Greenaway
. She featured in the BBC drama The Last Enemy
in early 2008 playing the role of Elaeanor Brooke, a junior minister. In 2009, she portrayed Jenette in the last episode -season 2- of the BBC hit series Ashes to Ashes
. She also played the role of Annette Nicholls in the 2010 three-part TV series Five Daughters
.
She appeared as Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish in the ninth, and final, series of Waking the Dead
. In 2011 Birthistle appeared in the Sky1 TV series Strike Back: Project Dawn
Captain Kate Marshall in episodes 1 to 4.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
actress, best known for her role in Ae Fond Kiss
Ae Fond Kiss...
Ae Fond Kiss... is a 2004 romantic drama film directed by Ken Loach, and starring Atta Yaqub and Eva Birthistle. The title is taken from a Scottish song by Robert Burns, the complete line being "Ae fond kiss, and then we sever..."-Plot:Casim Khan is a Glaswegian DJ of Pakistani origin...
. She won the London Film Critics Circle
London Film Critics Circle
The London Film Critics' Circle is the name by which the Film Section of The Critics' Circle is known internationally.The word London was added because it was thought the term Critics' Circle Film Awards lacked meaning — for people in LA for example — and the Film Section wished its annual Awards...
British Actress of the Year award in 2004 and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role (Film) award.
Biography
Born in BrayBray
Bray is a town in north County Wicklow, Ireland. It is a busy urban centre and seaside resort, with a population of 31,901 making it the fourth largest in Ireland as of the 2006 census...
, Republic of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, the daughter of a farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
, the family moved to Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, when she was 14. She was raised Roman Catholic. As a teenager, Eva went to Dublin to study acting at the The Gaiety School of Acting
The Gaiety School of Acting
The Gaiety School of Acting is an Irish drama school. It is located on Essex Street West in Temple Bar, Dublin 8.The school was founded in 1986 by actor and director Joe Dowling, who currently serves as the chairman of the school, in response to the lack of full time actor training in Ireland at...
.
On 31 December 2006 she married her longtime partner, drummer for Derry band Jetplane Landing
Jetplane Landing
Jetplane Landing is a four piece band from Derry and London . They comprise Andrew Ferris , Jamie Burchell , Cahir O’Doherty and Raife Burchell . Jamie and Raife are brothers...
and occasional actor, Raife Burchell. The couple live in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Career
In 1995, she got her first TV role as Regina Crosbie in the serial GlenroeGlenroe
Glenroe was an Irish television drama series broadcast between September 1983 and May 2001 on RTÉ One. The programme was a spin-off from Bracken, a short-lived RTÉ drama itself spun off from The Riordans. Glenroe was broadcast on Sunday nights at 20.30, generally from September to May. The show was...
, one of Irish channel RTE
RTE
RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey...
's highest-rated shows. She stayed for three years until 1998. Other TV work followed, until she was offered her first feature film in 1997, All Souls' Day by Alan Gilsenan
Alan Gilsenan
Alan Gilsenan, Irish writer, director and film-maker.A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin - he won First Class Honours in Modern English and Sociology - Gilsenan received the inaugural A.J. Leventhal Scholarship...
. She played a variety of roles in Irish films, including Drinking Crude (1997), co-starring Colin Farrell
Colin Farrell
Colin James Farrell is an Irish actor, who has appeared in such film as Tigerland, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth, The Recruit, Alexander and S.W.A.T....
, and TV movie Miracle at Midnight
Miracle at Midnight
Miracle at Midnight is a TV movie based on the Rescue of the Danish Jews in Denmark during the Holocaust. It is a Disney production and premiered on ccc in 1998. It was also portrayed in Ms...
(1998), with Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...
.
In 2002, Eva appeared in two dramas about the same challenging subject, Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday —sometimes called the Bogside Massacre—was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, in which twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army...
: the documentary-style TV drama Bloody Sunday, starring James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt
James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena, County Antrim, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane, before moving to Coleraine, County Londonderry. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster...
, and Sunday, written by Jimmy McGovern
Jimmy McGovern
Jimmy McGovern is a BAFTA award-winning English television scriptwriter from Liverpool.-Early career:McGovern started his career working on Channel 4's soap opera Brookside in 1982, tackling many social issues such as unemployment.-Successes:...
.
In 2003, she appeared in the TV series Trust
Trust (TV series)
Trust was a UK television program produced written and created by Simon Block for the BBC by Box TV Productions. It starred Robson Green and a cast of other British actors including Sarah Parish, Neil Stuke, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Eva Birthistle and Ian McShane...
before starring in arguably her most prominent part so far as Roisin Hanlon in the Ken Loach
Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
movie Ae Fond Kiss...
Ae Fond Kiss...
Ae Fond Kiss... is a 2004 romantic drama film directed by Ken Loach, and starring Atta Yaqub and Eva Birthistle. The title is taken from a Scottish song by Robert Burns, the complete line being "Ae fond kiss, and then we sever..."-Plot:Casim Khan is a Glaswegian DJ of Pakistani origin...
(2003/04), which won her many awards, including the 2005 London Critics Circle Film Award as "British Actress of the Year". In 2007, following objections from some Irish filmmakers and actors at being nominated for "Best British" awards, it was decided that Irish filmmakers and actors would only be eligible for awards which did not have the word "British" in the title. To that end the titles of several of the awards were amended to exclude the word British. The Attenborough Award now goes to the best British or Irish film of the year, while the two British Supporting Actor awards lost the word "British" from their title so that British (English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish) or Irish actors in supporting roles all became eligible.
She appeared in Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan
Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...
's Breakfast on Pluto
Breakfast on Pluto (film)
Breakfast on Pluto is a 2005 comedy-drama film directed by Neil Jordan and based on the novel of the same name by Patrick McCabe, as adapted by Jordan and McCabe...
, Ol Parker
Ol Parker
Oliver Parker is an English TV writer and director.In 1997, he married actress Thandie Newton, who starred in his first film, It Was an Accident ....
's Imagine Me & You
Imagine Me & You
Imagine Me & You is a 2005 British-American comedy-romance film written and directed by Ol Parker. It centres on the relationship between Rachel, played by Piper Perabo and Luce, played by Lena Headey, who meet on Rachel's wedding day. The movie takes its title from a line in the song "Happy...
and Save Angel Hope by Lukas Erni in 2005 and in Brian Kirk
Brian Kirk
Brian Kirk is an Irish television director who has most recently directed episodes of Game of Thrones, FX's The Riches and Showtime's Brotherhood and The Tudors...
's Middletown in 2006.
Birthistle starred as human rights lawyer Jane Lavery in the TV conspiracy drama The State Within
The State Within
The State Within is a 2006 Seven-episode British television political drama, written by Lizzie Mickery and Daniel Percival, produced by Grainne Marmion as a joint BBC–BBC America production, that was broadcast by BBC1 in the United Kingdom from Thursday, 2 November 2006.The protagonist of The State...
in 2006. In late 2007 she featured as Rembrandt's wife Saskia van Uylenburg
Saskia van Uylenburg
Saskia van Uylenburgh was the daughter of a Frisian mayor. She did not marry an academic, but became the wife of painter Rembrandt van Rijn, who was the son of a wealthy miller from Leiden...
in the historical drama Nightwatching
Nightwatching
Nightwatching is a 2007 film about the artist Rembrandt and the creation of his painting The Night Watch. The film is directed by Peter Greenaway and stars Martin Freeman as Rembrandt, with Eva Birthistle as his wife Saskia van Uylenburg, Jodhi May as his lover Geertje Dircx, and Emily Holmes as...
by Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...
. She featured in the BBC drama The Last Enemy
The Last Enemy (TV series)
The Last Enemy is a BBC TV series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and featuring Robert Carlyle and Max Beesley which first aired on 17 February 2008.-Plot:...
in early 2008 playing the role of Elaeanor Brooke, a junior minister. In 2009, she portrayed Jenette in the last episode -season 2- of the BBC hit series Ashes to Ashes
Ashes to Ashes (TV series)
Ashes to Ashes is a British science fiction and police procedural drama television series, serving as the sequel to Life on Mars.The series began airing on BBC One in February 2008. A second series began broadcasting in April 2009...
. She also played the role of Annette Nicholls in the 2010 three-part TV series Five Daughters
Five Daughters
Five Daughters is a British television drama mini-series starring Ian Hart, Sarah Lancashire, Jaime Winstone and Juliet Aubrey. Set in 2006, it is about the five victims of the Ipswich serial murders and how the crime affected their families...
.
She appeared as Detective Superintendent Sarah Cavendish in the ninth, and final, series of Waking the Dead
Waking the Dead (TV series)
Waking the Dead is a British television police procedural crime drama series produced by the BBC featuring a fictional Cold Case Unit comprising CID police officers, a psychological profiler and a forensic scientist. A pilot episode aired in September 2000 and there have been a total of nine series...
. In 2011 Birthistle appeared in the Sky1 TV series Strike Back: Project Dawn
Strike Back: Project Dawn
Strike Back: Project Dawn, as it is known in the United Kingdom is a ten-part British-American action television serial, and is the second series of Strike Back. However the only cast member to return from the original series was Richard Armitage in the first episode...
Captain Kate Marshall in episodes 1 to 4.