Oona Laurence

The Weight of a Tony at Age Ten

In 2013, Oona Laurence took the stage at the Shubert Theatre to star in Matilda the Musical. She was ten years old and carried the weight of a multimillion-dollar production on her shoulders. That performance earned her a Special Tony Award for Excellence in Theatre. It was an honor shared with her castmates, but it put her name on the radar of casting directors in New York.

Laurence was born in 2002 and grew up in a family connected to acting. Her sisters Aimée and Jeté have also worked on stage. But she was the first to make the definitive leap to the big screen, with a poise far beyond her years.

And the gamble paid off.

In 2015 she faced her first major film challenge in Southpaw. Playing the daughter of a boxer played by Jake Gyllenhaal required an emotional intensity that Laurence handled without falling back on the usual habits of child actors. The shoot demanded immediate chemistry in highly charged dramatic scenes that ultimately defined her profile in the industry.

The Look of Sofia Coppola

Sofia Coppola cast her in 2017 for the ensemble of The Beguiled. In this take on the Civil War drama, Laurence played Amy. She shared the set with Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst in an atmosphere of contained tension, shot in just 26 days on a plantation in Louisiana.

The film's budget was 10 million dollars, and critics praised Laurence's ability to hold her own opposite established stars. Her character served as the catalyst for several internal conflicts within the girls' boarding school. Her presence was therefore essential to the film's narrative pace.

That same year, she appeared in Bad Moms. It was a shift toward mainstream comedy that let her explore a different side of her talent. Laurence understands that survival in the industry depends on not getting stuck in a single genre.

Her career didn't stop at live action.

Voice Acting and Westerns

Between 2018 and 2023, she voiced the character Hedgehog in the animated series Summer Camp Island. This Cartoon Network project gave her rare job stability while she finished her studies. It is voice work that requires a specific vocal technique to keep the character consistent over five years.

In 2020 she returned to drama with Lost Girls. The Netflix film tells the true story of a serial killer on Long Island. Laurence played the younger sister in a family torn apart by tragedy. It was a restrained, straightforward role that avoided cheap sentimentality.

In 2024 she joined the cast of The Thicket. This dark western is based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale and stars Peter Dinklage. Filming moved to the plains of Calgary to take advantage of natural light and the extreme Canadian winter weather.

The production wrapped on a tightly managed shooting schedule to meet post-production deadlines. Laurence plays a young woman kidnapped by an outlaw gang on the Texas border. The contract for this project was closed under the new union rules following the actors' strikes in the United States.