Amanda Harris has won the 2005 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role for her portrayal of Emilia in the RSC’s production of Othello. Harris beat newcomers Samuel Barnett (The History Boys) and Eddie Redmayne (The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?), and theatrical royalty Dame Judi Dench (All’s Well That Ends Well) to the coveted statuette.
Harris appeared in the Gregory Doran directed production at the Trafalgar Studios opposite Sello Maake ka Ncube as Othello, Lisa Dillon as Desdemona and Sir Antony Sher as Iago. Her performance as a wife driven to drink by a husband she will do anything to please, realising only at the very end what she has done, caught the eyes of the Olivier Award judges.
Harris has been one of the RSC’s leading actresses since 1986 when she played Emilia in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, the Swan theatre’s first production. Her first theatrical break came in another production of Othello, when in 1982, while still a student, she was cast as Desdemona in Declan Donnellan’s Cheek By Jowl production. Her other credits include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (playing Hermia, Hippolyta and Titania on different occasions), World’s Apart (opposite Janet McTeer and Joely Richardson), Coriolanus, Macbeth, The Taming Of The Shrew, The Real Inspector Hound and The Island Of Slaves.
Harris was presented with her award by Patrick Stewart and Joshua Jackson who are currently starring together in David Mamet’s A Life In The Theatre at the Apollo.
