- Kerry Condon is a prolific Irish actress
- She rose to global fame with her role in ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’
- Kerry has been nominated for a Golden Globe for her outstanding work in the film.
Kerry Condon has been working as an actress for years, but 2023 is clearly a milestone. The Banshees of Inisherin breakout, 40, has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Supporting Actress. The honor comes for her role as Siobhán Súilleabháin opposite Colin Farrell in the lead role of Padraic Súilleabháin. The two play siblings in the dark comedy, which also stars Brendan Gleeson and has received critical acclaim across the board.
Kerry stands alongside iconic actresses vying for the 2023 Golden Globe honor, including Angela Bassett for her role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Carey Mulligan for journalism drama She Said, Dolly De Leon for Triangle of Sadness, and Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Here are five things to know about Kerry as she prepares for the Golden Globe Awards on January 10.
She’s been acting since her teens
According to her Wikipedia page, Kerry first appeared onscreen at the age of 16 in the 1999 film Angela’s Ashes. Just a couple of years later, at the age of 18, she played Mairead in The Lieutenant of Inishmore at the Royal Shakespeare Company. She was also notably the youngest actress to take on the legendary role of Ophelia in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Hamlet in 2001, also at 18. Clearly, she was off to an illustrious start, even at a young age.
“Nobody ever really put the connections together of me having done the plays and things [before film and TV], and I do like that being known, because I did get started very young,” she told Indiewire in November of 2022, just as Banshees was taking off as an early awards contender.
Kerry is an accomplished stage actress
As mentioned above, Kerry, began serious work as a stage actress at a very young age, taking on notoriously difficult roles and nailing them with grace. In fact, the film’s director, Martin McDonagh, says he wanted to capture her brilliance onstage, and translate it to the screen. “I don’t think I’d quite seen how brilliant she was onstage really captured in the movies,” he told Vanity Fair. “I wanted to make sure that we did that, and she just blew me away.”
Martin cast Kerry in his play The Lieutenant of Inishmore when she was all of 17. Clearly, they’ve been a powerful team ever since.
She’s been acting in TV & films for years
Martin accomplished his goal of getting Kerry’s talents to shine on both the big and small screens. She’s made a name for herself in the HBO/BBC series Rome, in The Walking Dead, and in Better Call Saul. She also sports high profile roles in films including Avengers: Quantum Encounter (voice work), Unleashed, Intermission, and Ned Kelly, among others. Her role in Martin’s Oscar winning Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a small one, but it clearly reinforced her bond with the director.
She has a close working relationship with Colin Farrell
Kerry’s natural dynamic with Colin Farrell in The Banshees of Inisherin is no accident. Her past working relationship helped make her comfortable with a man who has become an enormous star. “I knew Colin from a very long time ago, my second job ever was this TV show called Ballykissangel, and it was very early on in his career that we were both on this show,” Kerry told ScreenRant in an October 2022 interview.
“Then, we knew each other, and we did this other movie called Intermission in Ireland, another Irish movie about, like, 16 years ago. Basically, it wasn’t my first time meeting him, and that helps, that was the first thing that kind of helped. I didn’t have to get to know him.”
She’s grateful for a seasoned career
In her September 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, Kerry admitted to feeling grateful for the decades long journey acting had taken her on thus far. “After the 24 years I’ve been an actress, it’s like, yeah, I feel grateful,” she told the magazine of the critical acclaim over Banshees. “Different jobs give you different gifts—that’s what’s great about being a working actor. If you got famous very young, you’d miss all these nuggets. You can learn so many things.”