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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets © Warner Bros. MIRIAM MARGOLYES (PROFESSOR SPROUT) easily moves from throwing Arnold Schwarzenegger into a wall in End of Days to playing 23 characters from the works of Charles Dickens in her award-winning one woman show (Dickens’ Women), Miriam Margolyes is one of the UK’s most prolific and versatile actresses equally at home on stage or screen. She went to the US following an award-winning performance in Christine
Edzard’s film Little Dorrit appearing four times on the Tonight Show,
before being given her own situation comedy Frannie’s Turn. Her television career is equally as varied with highlights including: The Girls of Slender Means; Glittering Prizes; Blackadder; Old Flames; The History Man; Oliver Twist; The Lost Tribe; Life and Loves of a She Devil; Vanity Fair; and Lynda La Plante’s Supply and Demand. Her greatest love is the theatre, including most recently the Vagina Monologues. Her first appearance at the Arts Theatre was in the 1976 hit Kennedy’s Children with other appearances including: The Threepenny Opera; Orpheus Descending both with Vanessa Redgrave and She Stoops to Conquer with Sir Donald Sinden. Her production of Gertrude Stein and a Companion won a Fringe First at the 1986 Edinburgh Festival, transferring to a sellout season at the Hampstead Theatre and a US and Australian tour. Her last West End appearance was as George in The Killing of Sister George and the Ambassador Theatre and in 2000 in Los Angeles, she appeared in Sir Peter Hall’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Margolyes’s career began in radio with parts ranging from voicing small boys to old ladies. She has voiced thousands of TV and radio commercials, recorded stories for children including Matilda; The Worst Witch; Pinocchio; The First Snows of Winter; Mulan and the voice of Babe’s mother, Fly, in Babe. Her radio career was crowned in 1993 when she recorded The Queen & I for the BBC, playing every member of the royal family. This was released on cassette and became the most popular audio book ever issued, for which she won the Sony Best Radio Actress Award. In 1997 Margolyes’ recording of Oliver Twist won awards in both England and the US and she was named Best Audio Performer by the Spoken Word Publishers Association. SALLY MORTEMORE (MADAM PINCE) plays the role of librarian in this, her feature film debut. Mortemore’s diverse career has included extensive tours with such veteran and acclaimed theatre companies as Red Shift, a physical/visual company founded in the early 1980s by artistic director Jonathan Holloway, for whom she played Julianna Borereau in his adaptation of The Aspern Papers. Her following appearances with this company included Lady Sandwich in Poor Mrs. Pepys and Gertrude in Hamlet-First Cut, the first quarto version of Shakespeare’s play. With the English Shakespeare Company, she extended her range of the Bard’s notable characters as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Lady Macbeth. Mortemore has also toured with Cleanbreak Theatre Company appearing as Sandy in playwright Lyn Coghlan’s Apache Tears, which won the Peggy Ramsey Award for Best New Commissioned Play in 2000. Her British repertory work includes seasons at Watford, Bromley, Basingstoke and Hornchurch and just prior to her joining the cast of Harry Potter in January, she appeared in the title role of the Snow Queen at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton. Previous film work includes short films for the BBC and Channel 4, Miss Quigley in Daphne and Apollo and the wife in Special Occasions. Mortemore has also appeared in several television commercials. ALAN RICKMAN (PROFESSOR SEVERUS SNAPE) reprises his role as the enigmatic Potions professor and head of Slytherin House. Alan Rickman is one of the UK’s most respected film, television and theatre actors and famed throughout the world for his performances in films as diverse as: Die Hard; An Awfully Big Adventure; Bob Roberts; Truly Madly Deeply; Close My Eyes; The January Man and Galaxy Quest. He also starred in Mesmer for which he was named Best Actor at the Montreal Film Festival. For Sense & Sensibility and Michael Collins he received BAFTA nominations and for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves he won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor. For Truly Madly Deeply, Close My Eyes and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves he was named Evening Standard Film Actor of the Year. Recent films include: Blow Dry, The Search for John Gissing and Play (directed by Anthony Minghella for Beckett on Film). For his role as the enigmatic Russian monk in HBO’s Rasputin, Rickman won the 1996 Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor. Other television credits include: Benefactors; Revolutionary Witness; Spirit of Man; Pity in History; Barchester Chronicles; Busted; Therese Raquin and Romeo & Juliet. As a director Rickman’s work includes Wax Acts with Ruby Wax in the West End and The Winter Guest by Sharman MacDonald at both the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre in London. He then went on to direct (and co-write with Macdonald) the feature film version of The Winter Guest starring Emma Thompson. It was an Official Selection for the Venice Film Festival winning three awards and later won Best Feature at the Chicago Film Festival. Rickman is equally famed for his theatre work. As a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company he starred in Les Liaisons Dangereuses both in the West End and on Broadway where he was nominated for a Tony Award. Other productions for the RSC include: Mephisto; Troilus and Cressida; As You Like It; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Antony and Cleopatra; Captain Swing and The Tempest. Most of his stage work however has been in contemporary theatre and includes: Fears and Miseries of the Third Reich at the Glasgow Citizens; The Carnation Game and The Summer Party at the Crucible Sheffield; Commitments and The Last Elephant at the Bush Theatre; Bad Language at the Hampstead Theatre Club; The Grass Widow; The Lucky Chance and The Seagull at the Royal Court. For the National Theatre Rickman starred in Antony & Cleopatra and played the title role in Hamlet at Riverside Studios directed by Robert Sturua, the celebrated director of the Rustaveli Theatre in Georgia. Rickman has also appeared three times at the Edinburgh Festival - a double bill of The Devil is an Ass and Measure for Measure which also toured Europe; Brothers Karamazov which then toured the USSR and Yukio Ninagawa’s Tango at the end of Winter which later transferred to the West End winning Rickman the Time Out Award for Best Actor. Rickman recently starred in the highly acclaimed West End production of Noel Coward’s Private Lives. He won both the Variety Club and Theatre Goers Awards for Best Actor and was nominated for Olivier and Evening Standard Awards. The play enjoyed a sell out run at the Albery Theatre and is currently running on Broadway. FIONA SHAW (PETUNIA DURSLEY) is back as Harry’s cold-hearted Aunt, sister to his beloved deceased mother. Fiona Shaw is one of the UK’s most celebrated and respected stage actresses, most recently receiving rave reviews and the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress in Medea in London’s West End. In 1990 she received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Rosalind in As You Like it, followed by a further Olivier Award for Best Actress and London Critics Award for her performance in The Good Person of Sechuan. She received a further Laurence Olivier Award and London Critics Award for her portrayal of Electra, again in 1990. This was followed in 1992 by the London Critics Award for her eponymous portrayal of Hedda Gabler and in 1993 she again received the Laurence Olivier Award and Evening Standard Drama Award for Best Actress for Stephen Daldry’s Machinal. Other major stage productions include: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; The Way of the World and Richard II for the Royal National Theatre; A world tour of The Waste Land; The Rivals; Bloody Poetry and Philistines; Les Liaisons Dangereuses; Mephisto; Much Ado About Nothing; The Merchant of Venice; Hyde Park and The Taming of the Shrew for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In addition to her performances on stage, Shaw has also directed The Widowers Houses for the National Theatre Education Tour and Hamlet for the National Theatre of Ireland. Shaw’s memorable film credits include: Jim Sheridon’s My Left Foot; Bob Rafelson’s Mountains of the Moon; Hanif Kureishi’s London Kills Me; Franco Zeffirelli’s Jane Eyre; Neil Jordan’s The Butcher Boy; Deborah Warner’s The Last September and recently Clare Peploe’s The Triumph of Love. For television Shaw has reprised her roles in Hedda Gabler and The Waste Land, both for the BBC, as well as starring in Danny Boyle’s For the Greater Good; Roger Michell’s Persuasian; Andy Wilson’s Gormenghast and as the star of Lynda La Plante’s Mind Games. In 1997 Shaw was awarded a doctorate at the National University of Ireland and made an Honorary Professor of Drama at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. In 2001 she was awarded a doctorate from Trinity College Dublin and the French Government has awarded her an Officer des Artes et des Lettres. She also received a CBE in last year’s New Year’s Honours List. At present she is performing The Power Book at the National Theatre and later in the year will perform Medea in New York. MAGGIE SMITH (PROFESSOR MINERVA McGONAGALL) returns to play the deputy head of Hogwarts and head of the Gryffindor house. Dame Maggie Smith is quite simply one of the world’s greatest stage and screen actresses revered both by her peers and the public alike and the recipient of countless awards, including two Academy Awards, the CBE and the DBE. Most recently she received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for her role in Robert Altman’s highly acclaimed Gosford Park. Smith first appeared on stage with the Oxford University Drama Society in 1952 and then made her professional debut in New York in the New Faces 1956 Revue. She joined the Old Vic Company in 1959 and began gathering awards including the 1962 Evening Standard’s Best Actress Award for her roles as Doreen in The Private Ear and Belinda in The Public Eye. She joined The National Theatre in 1963 playing Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier’s Othello and went on to further success in Black Comedy, Miss Julie, The Country Wife, The Beaux Stratagem and Much Ado About Nothing. But, it was in 1969 and her portrayal in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie which catapulted her into the public eye and won her an Academy Award and the Society of Film and TV Arts Best Actress Award. Further film roles followed including: Travels with my Aunt (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress) and Death on the Nile. Then, in 1977 Smith won her second Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her role in Neil Simon’s California Suite. The accolades continued to flow with Alan Bennett’s A Private Function (co-starring Michael Palin) for which she won a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, a Variety Club Award and her fifth Academy Award nomination. Further film success followed with Merchant Ivory’s A Room with a View; The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress); Stephen Spielberg’s Hook; Sister Act; The Secret Garden; Richard III, The First Wives Club; Washington Square; Tea with Mussolini (for which she won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress) and The Last September. She was recently seen in Callie Khouri’s The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood with Sandra Bullock. Smith has remained faithful to her stage career throughout her illustrious film and television career. She played the title role of Hedda Gabler in 1970 and won her second Variety Club Best Actress Award for her portrayal of Mrs. Millamant in the Way of the World. Further stage productions include: Night and Day and Edna O’Brien’s Virginia for which she received the Evening Standard Drama Award for Best Actress. Other notable productions include: The Interpreters; Infernal Machine; Coming in to Land; Lettice and Lovage (for which she won a Tony Award for Best Actress); The Importance of Being Earnest; Three Tall Women (for which she won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress); A Delicate Balance, Alan Bennett’s Lady in the Van and will soon be appearing in The Breath of Life by David Hare. Major television credits include: Granada’s Mrs. Silly for which she won a BAFTA for Best Actress; the BBC’s Momento Mori; Suddenly Last Summer and Talking Heads: Bed Among the Lentils for which she won the Royal Television Society Award for Best Actress and most recently The BBC’s All the King’s Men and David Copperfield. In 1970 Smith received a CBE and in 1990 she became Dame Maggie Smith when she received the DBS. She was awarded the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize in 1991, is a Fellow of the British Film Institute; was awarded a Silver BAFTA in 1993, is an Hon. DLitt of Cambridge University and St. Andrews and is a patron of the Jane Austen Society. JULIE WALTERS (MRS. MOLLY WEASLEY) again plays mother to Ron, Percy, Fred, George and Ginny. Julie Walters is a multi-talented and award-winning actress famed for both her film and television work. Most recently she has starred in the forthcoming film Lewis Gilbert’s Before You Go and of course starred as Billy’s ballet teacher in Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot, a role that garnered her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, and a BAFTA and Variety Club Award. Although it was perhaps her feature film debut opposite Michael Caine in Educating Rita which brought her worldwide fame. The role won her a Golden Globe, BAFTA and Variety Club Award for Best Actress and an Academy Award nomination. Walters also received a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Actress for Personal Services and a BAFTA Award nomination and a Variety Club Award for Best Supporting Actress for Stepping Out. Walters’ other main film credits include: Titanic Town; Intimate Relations; Sister, My Sister; Just Like a Woman; Prick Up Your Ears; Buster (opposite Phil Collins); She’ll Be Wearing Pink Pajamas and Killing Dad. In the UK Walters first came to prominence with her television coupling with fellow comedienne Victoria Wood. She has since starred in both comic and dramatic programs including Julie Walters & Friends for which she was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Programme; Alan Bennett’s Say Something Happened and Alan Bleasdale’s The Boys from the Black Stuff both of which garnered her further BAFTA Award nominations. Other main television credits include: the forthcoming Murder; My Beautiful Son for which she has just won a BAFTA Award for Best Actress; Dinner Ladies I & II; Oliver Twist; Jack and the Beanstalk; Green Card; the BBC’s Melissa; Brazen Hussies; Roald Dahl’s Little Red Riding Hood; Bambino Mio; Wide Eyed and Legless for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress; Clothes in the Wardrobe; Getaway; Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads and Intensive Care; Channel 4’s Jake’s Progress and GBH; Victoria Wood as Seen on TV for which she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Comedy Performance; The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and the BBC’s The Birthday Party and The All Day Breakfast Show (Christmas Special). Walters is also an accomplished theatre actress and nominated for an Olivier for Best Actress for Sam Shepherd’s Fool for Love. Other stage productions include Willy Russell’s Educating Rita; Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers; Alan Bleasdale’s Having a Ball; Terrance McNally Frankie & Johnnie; Sharman Macdonald’s When I was a Girl I used to Scream and Shout; Tennessee William’s The Rose Tattoo directed by Peter Hall and the award winning production of All My Sons directed by Howard Davies for which Walters won an Olivier Award in 2001 for Best Actress. MARK WILLIAMS (MR. ARTHUR WEASLEY) plays father to Ron, Ginny, Percy, Fred and George and husband to Mrs. Weasley, as played by Julie Walters. Since graduating in English from Oxford University, Mark Williams has become a familiar and much loved figure in film, TV and theatre. His many film credits include most recently: Metin Hüseyin’s Anita & Me; Mel Smith’s High Heels & Low Lifes; Peter Hewitt’s Whatever Happened to Harold Smith; John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love and Peter Hewitt’s The Borrowers. Prior to this Williams starred opposite Hugh Laurie as Horace in Stephen Herek’s live action adaptation of Dodie Smith’s 101 Dalmatians. He has also appeared in Karen Adler’s Fever; Gabriel Axel’s Prince of Jutland; Clare Peploe’s High Season; the BFI’s Out of Order and Michael Hoffman’s Privileged. Williams is perhaps best known in the UK as a regular in BBC TV’s The Fast Show, having to date appeared in four series and a Christmas Special. Other notable small screen credits include: Red Dwarf; Stuff; Bottom; Harry Enfield; Tumbledown; Making Out; Kinsey; Bad Company; Hunting Venus; Happy Birthday Shakespeare; Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) and the co-leader in Rob Grant’s The Strangers. He was also team host in the Sky TV quiz show Jumper for Goalposts. He has directed for the Channel 4 sit-com Festival at The Riverside Studios and co-produced In Exile, a sit-com series for Channel 4. Since spending three years touring by narrow boat with the Mikron Theatre Company, his theatre credits have included: The title role in William for the Royal Court Theatre’s Young Writers Festival; Fanshen at the National Theatre; Coquin in Doctor of Honour for Cheek by Jowl Theatre Company; The City Wives Confederacy at Greenwich Theatre; Moscow Gold, Singer, a Dream of People and Touchstone in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1997 he played the role of Ivan in Art in the West End and in 1988 he enjoyed a sell out season at Labatt’s Apollo of The Fast Show Live on Stage. Most recently in 1999 he played the role of Blakey in Richard Wilson’s production of Toast at the Royal Court Theatre. * * * |
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