Fiona Shaw to be Honored at US Ireland Pre-Academy Awards Party

Acclaimed actress, Fiona Shaw will be honored by the US-Ireland Alliance at its third annual "Oscar Wilde: Honoring The Irish in Film" pre-Academy Awards party, Thursday, February 21, 2008 at the Wilshire Ebell in Los Angeles, California.

Ms. Shaw joins Academy Award winner James L. Brooks as an honoree at the US-Ireland Alliance bash that was created to bring together people in the film industry in the US and Ireland.

The eclectic role choices and diversity of the Cork-born actress has won her a diverse audience. Known to millions of Harry Potter fans as Harry’s mean aunt, Petunia Dursley, she is also one of the great actresses on the British stage and is well-remembered by Broadway fans for her 2003 Tony-nominated performance as Medea.

She is known for her scene-stealing performances in films. This year she played opposite Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling as the formidable, sometimes bemused, sometimes exasperated judge in Fracture. In 2006, she played Hilary Swank’s snobbish, unhinged mother in The Black Dahlia, directed by Brian De Palma and starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Aaron Eckhart.

Ms. Shaw first came to the attention of film audiences as Dr. Eileen Cole in Jim Sheridan’s 1989 Oscar Award winning film, My Left Foot. She portrayed the compassionate therapist of Daniel Day Lewis’ Christie Brown. In 1990, she played the sex-starved headmistress in the comedy 3 Men and a Little Lady starring Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenbeg. She has given many memorable performances, including that of Mrs. Nugent in Neil Jordan’s film The Butcher Boy.

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Ms. Shaw has long been a fixture on the British stage where she is admired for her mastery of Shakespeare and the Greek classics. She is a member of the jury for the international architectural competition for the new Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Later this month, she’ll team up with long-time collaborator/director Deborah Warner for a production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

Noting that Ms. Shaw’s characters often come to wretched ends, US-Ireland Alliance president Trina Vargo assures that the evening in L.A. will end better for her.