From The Belfast Telegraph:
Belfast-born actress Laura Donnelly won an Olivier award this year for her role in The Ferryman, a play inspired by the story of her uncle, who was shot and secretly buried by the IRA. As she takes to the stage in Donegal at the Brian Friel Festival, she talks to Laurence White about how her family coped with the tragedy and why she was inspired to pursue a career in acting.
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Laura is delighted with the play’s success – Jez (for best new play) and Sam Mendes (for best director) collected awards and there were also five nominations for best supporting actor, best supporting actress (twice), best actor and best set design:
“It is great for the play to get the recognition it did. It was an astonishing achievement by Jez. It was a tremendous achievement to get three top awards. It is still sinking in. I never dared dream that I would get an Olivier Award. I always hoped that I would make a living as an actor and anything else coming after that would be a bonus,” Laura says.
“It is wonderful to be recognised by your peers in such a public way. Awards are not the be all and end all, and not why we do this job, but it is a lovely pat on the back.”
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But the recognition she really wanted came from her mother, Angela.
“We kept her up to date with the development of the play the whole way through. But there was something which only occurred to me when I was going into rehearsals for the play – I had never had an open and honest discussion with her about Eugene’s death.”
Although she was not born at the time, Laura was later shielded from the truth. Initially, she was told her uncle had died in a car crash. In fact, he had been buried in a bog near Dundalk, and his body was only discovered by accident by a dog walker in 1984.
Laura remembers: “I gleaned some information from mum over the years but, typically of families in Ireland, and particularly Northern Ireland, we never sat down and talked about things in depth. There was a sort of vague silence about his death which existed in my family for so long.
“When Jez had the idea of writing the play, we had some in-depth discussions with my mum about how she felt at the time her brother disappeared and what it means to her. In lots of ways that was very cathartic for her.
A very humble and amazing actress. Would love to see more of her roles.