Laura Donnelly

The Weight of Blood on Stage

Laura Donnelly doesn't waste energy on artifice. She grew up in Belfast under the noise of a conflict that shaped her character long before she knew she wanted to be an actress. In 2004, she finished her studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow and began working almost immediately.

And she did it without a safety net.

Her first steps in television were modest. She appeared in productions such as Sugar Rush and Casualty while looking for a real foothold in London theatre. But in 2014 she landed the role that brought her massive visibility on the series Outlander. She played Jenny Fraser Murray over several seasons with a toughness that surprised readers of the original novels.

The idea for The Ferryman came from her own family history. Her uncle disappeared at the hands of the IRA in 1981, and that personal trauma became the basis for playwright Jez Butterworth's play. Donnelly starred in the production at the Royal Court Theatre in 2017.

In 2018, she won the Olivier Award for Best Actress for this role. The play transferred to Broadway and grossed more than a million dollars a week during its strongest commercial run. It was the moment when the American industry stopped seeing her as a luxury supporting actress and started offering her large-scale projects.

Victorian Fantasy and Monster Hunters

In 2021, she led the cast of The Nevers for HBO. The series suffered delays due to the global health crisis and drastic changes in creative direction after the departure of its original creator. Donnelly played Amalia True, a widow with unusual combat skills in Victorian England. It was a physically demanding shoot that required months of martial arts training.

And the gamble paid off.

She entered the Marvel Universe in 2022 with the special Werewolf by Night. The project was shot in black and white under the direction of Michael Giacchino. She played Elsa Bloodstone, a monster hunter searching for a family heirloom in a labyrinthine mansion. The TV special moved away from the usual superhero aesthetic to embrace the classic horror style of the 1930s.

In 2024, she returned to the West End in The Hills of California. It was another collaboration with Butterworth, directed by Sam Mendes at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Critics praised her ability to carry the emotional weight of a story split across two different timelines.

The Death of Bunny Munro is scheduled to air in 2025. In this adaptation of Nick Cave's novel, she shares the cast with Matt Smith. Filming for the series took place mainly on location in Brighton during the spring of that period.

The series had a tight budget by Sky Atlantic's standards.