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Sharon Horgan facts for kids

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Sharon Horgan
Sharon Horgan, Trending Report (cropped).jpg
Horgan in 2017
Born
Sharon Lorencia Horgan

(1970-07-13) 13 July 1970 (age 53)
Hackney, London, England
Citizenship
Occupation
  • Actress
  • writer
  • director
  • producer
  • comedian
Years active 1999–present
Spouse(s)
Jeremy Rainbird
(m. 2005; div. 2019)
Children 2
Relatives Shane Horgan (brother)

Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is a British-born Irish actress, writer, director, producer, and comedian. She is best known for creating and starring in the comedy series Pulling (2006–2009), Catastrophe (2015–2019), and Bad Sisters (2022–present). She also created the comedy series Divorce (2016–2019), Motherland (2016–present), and Shining Vale (2022–present).

Horgan has appeared in films, such as Valiant (2005), Imagine Me & You (2005), Death of a Superhero (2011), Man Up (2015), Game Night (2018), Military Wives (2019), Dating Amber (2020), Together (2021), Everybody's Talking About Jamie (2021), and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022).

Horgan won the 2008 British Comedy Award for Best TV Actress for Pulling, while the show's 2009 hour-long final episode won the British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Drama. A seven-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, she won the 2016 BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Writer for Catastrophe (with Rob Delaney). Catastrophe was also nominated for Scripted Comedy in the 2020 BAFTA TV Awards and for the 2016 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series. She has also won five Irish Film and Television Awards in both acting and writing for her work on Catastrophe. For her performance in Dating Amber, Horgan won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2023, Horgan earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Bad Sisters, including Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Horgan won the BAFTA TV award for Best Drama series for Bad Sisters, in 2023.

Early life

Horgan was born in Hackney, London, England. Her mother is Irish and her father is from New Zealand. When she was four years old, her parents moved the family to Bellewstown, County Meath, Ireland, to run a turkey farm.

One of five siblings, Horgan later used her childhood experiences for the semi-autobiographical short film The Week Before Christmas for Sky Arts 1. Horgan went to the Sacred Heart convent school in Drogheda.

Career

Early career

As a young actress struggling to make ends meet she took a series of odd-jobs. At the age of 27, Horgan started a degree in English and American Studies at Brunel University in west London, graduating in 2000. Around that time, Horgan met British writer Dennis Kelly, while they were both working in youth theatre, and they started writing together, producing material they then sent to the BBC, for which they won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2001 for Sketch Writing and Performance.

Acting

Horgan has appeared on stage, television and screen. Her first credited appearances on television were in The State We're In (2002) and Monkey Dust (2003), two sketch shows based on news and current affairs. She also contributed material to Monkey Dust. Her first named acting role on television was as Theresa O'Leary in Absolute Power (2003), a comedy set in the world of public relations and starring Stephen Fry. In 2005 she made her big-screen debut as Beth in Imagine Me & You, a British-American romantic comedy with Lena Headey directed by Ol Parker. She starred in two series of Pulling, which she also co-wrote with Dennis Kelly.

Horgan appeared as a guest booker in two series of Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2006–07), also on the BBC, a spoof comedy set behind the scenes of a chat show presented by Rob Brydon. She won a British Comedy Award in 2007 for Best Female Newcomer for her performance.

In 2010 Horgan appeared in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. The US/UK comedy series was written by David Cross, who also appeared as the title anti-hero, an incompetent American who takes a job leading the London sales team for an energy drink. She played Alice Bell, the café owner on whom he developed a crush.

In September 2011 she appeared in the world premiere of Saul Rubinek's play Terrible Advice at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. The play was set in Los Angeles and she played Delila, one half of its two warring couples.

In June 2012 Horgan was part of the ensemble cast for the pilot episode of Psychobitches, shown as part of Sky Arts 1's Playhouse Presents strand. In the sketch show, famous women from history are psychoanalysed by Rebecca Front's therapist; she played the novelist Jane Austen in the pilot, and later characters included Eva Peron, Cleopatra, Boudicca and Carmen Miranda. Two series of Psychobitches followed; the first was shown in May 2013, and the second in November 2014. She is well known for her role in Catastrophe, alongside Rob Delaney, a show which they co-created for Channel 4 and Amazon. Horgan also appeared in 2020’s second series of Criminal UK, BBC’s The Borrowers (2011), Dead Boss (2012) and Channel 4’s Free Agents (2009) and Bad Sugar (2012). She stars in and executive produces Channel 4 comedy-drama series This Way Up (2019–present).

Horgan played a supporting role in the 2018 dark comedy film Game Night as Sarah, a newcomer to the group of friends unwittingly roped into the game. She also appeared in films Death of a Superhero (2011), Run and Jump (2013), Man Up (2015), with Simon Pegg, Military Wives (2019) with Kristen Scott Thomas, Dating Amber (2020), and BBC Two film Together (2021) alongside James McAvoy.

She has voiced characters in the films Valiant (2005) and the short film Miss Remarkable & Her Career (2010). In 2017, she provided the voices of Minerva Campbell (the long-lost mother of the protagonist, Finn the Human) in the Cartoon Network animated series Adventure Time, and Courtney Portnoy in the animated series Bojack Horseman. She voices Queen Dagmar in Matt Groening’s animated series Disenchantment, and Kathleen in the animated series Bob's Burgers. She voices a Russian ex show cat Tabitha in 2021’s Housebroken which she executive produced.

Horgan also appeared in the feature film adaptation of the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie as Miss Hedge, which was released in September 2021. She has a supporting role in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent opposite Nicolas Cage which was released in March 2022.

Writer

Horgan's career breakthrough was Pulling, which she co-wrote with Dennis Kelly and starred in. She played Donna, an irresponsible marketing manager who calls off her wedding at the last minute, and one of three women sharing a flat in Penge, south London. Pulling was first shown on BBC Three in 2006, then repeated on BBC Two in 2008. The six-episode series became a ‘sleeper hit’, which gained iconic status with fans and was lauded by critics. A second series of six episodes ran March–April 2008 on BBC Three.

Despite good ratings and critical plaudits, Pulling was cancelled after two series, although an hour-long final episode was broadcast in May 2009. In 2007, the show was nominated for a British Academy Television Award and Horgan was nominated for a British Comedy Award. In 2008 she won a British Comedy Award for Pulling. In 2009 she was nominated for a British Academy Television Award and the show won a British Comedy Award.

In 2007 Horgan wrote Angelo's directed by Chloe Thomas and in June 2012 Horgan starred in Dead Boss, a sitcom set in a prison, which she wrote with comic Holly Walsh.

From 2015-2019, she co-starred and co-wrote the sitcom Catastrophe with American comic Rob Delaney. The two first met on Twitter, and because they made each other laugh decided to work together. They have both said Catastrophe was broadly based on their own personal experiences. In it she played Sharon, an Irishwoman living in London who becomes pregnant by Rob, an American she meets while he is on a business trip to London. Carrie Fisher played his mother. It was an instant critical success and after the second episode of the six-part series was aired Channel 4 announced it had commissioned a second series. Horgan was twice nominated for a Best Female Comedy Performance BAFTA for her role. in 2016, Channel 4, ordered a third and fourth season.

She also wrote Divorce (2016-2019), a US comedy series starring Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays a New York woman going through a lengthy divorce. In April 2015, HBO announced it had picked up the series after the pilot episode, and the show is Parker's first major acting commitment since Sex and the City. She was also an executive producer.

Horgan wrote the short Dreamland, which won the 2018 BAFTA TV Award for Best Short Form Programme and an episode of Modern Love titled “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive” (2019), which she also directed. She also co-created and co-writes Motherland (2017–present) for BBC Two, a programme about navigating the trials and traumas of middle-class motherhood, looking at the competitive side and unromantic take on parenting - not the cute and acceptable public face of motherhood, which is now in its third series.

She co-created and executive produced Shining Vale, alongside Jeff Astrof: a horror-comedy series for Starz. Courteney Cox has been cast as the lead. She is also writing alongside Kate Folk on a half-hour dramedy in development with 20th Television for Hulu, which will be set in the world of technology and dating and is based on The New Yorker Magazine short story ‘Out There’ by Folk. All three of these projects are co-produced via Horgan and Clelia Mountford’s production company Merman.

Director

In December 2012 Horgan made her directorial debut with the semi-autobiographical film The Week Before Christmas, which was broadcast as part of the Little Crackers series of short films on Sky 1. It was set on a turkey farm in Ireland, and in it she played her own mother, while her father was played by actor Conleth Hill. She later directed an episode of Amazon’s anthology series Modern Love titled “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive” which starred Tina Fey and John Slattery.

Presenter

In February 2005 Horgan co-presented the first series of The Friday Night Project (later The Sunday Night Project), a comedy variety show on Channel 4. On 3 June 2011, Horgan was the guest host of Have I Got News for You on BBC1.

She has presented a series of documentaries for Channel 4. In January 2012, in How to Be a Good Mother she talked to several families about their approach to child-rearing. In January 2013 in Secrets of a Good Marriage she discovered how various couples make their relationships work; and in On the Verge of a Midlife Crisis, she spoke to six women who had coped with the experience.

Horgan appeared on the BBC Radio 4 show Chain Reaction in March and April 2015. One week she was interviewed by Olivia Colman and the following week she interviewed Dennis Kelly.

Production company

In 2014, Horgan established Merman, an independent production company, with Clelia Mountford, who produced A Young Doctor's Notebook, Mr. Sloane, and Cockroaches. The two women met while working on The Week Before Christmas. The company now has offices in London, New York and LA.

Merman has co-produced many shows including Divorce (2016-2019), an American comedy series starring Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays a New York woman going through a lengthy divorce, Horgan also created the series. Merman produced the third series of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, which aired in early 2016. Merman also co-produced the critically acclaimed Catastrophe (2015-2019), BBC comedy Motherland, and W / RTÉ2's Women on the Verge.

Merman also makes Sky and ABC's Frayed (2019–present) created by comedian Sarah Kendall, which tells the story of wealthy London housewife is forced to return to her hometown in Australia, where she's forced to confront her past and the reasons that caused her to leave years ago. It is a co-production with Guesswork Television. Merman has also created BBC and Britbox’s There She Goes (2018–present) which centres around Rosie, a severely learning-disabled girl and her family. For Channel 4 and Hulu, Merman produces the BAFTA winning This Way Up (2019-present), a comedy about moving on, moving forward and trying to find happiness. Áine, played by writer Aisling Bea, is a whip smart English-as-a-foreign-language teacher trying to pull her life back together after a "teeny little nervous breakdown". Her sister Shona, is played by Horgan. Merman also produces Channel 4 and Amazon's Frank of Ireland (2021–present), created by Domhnall and Brian Gleeson, the hilarious story of a man's hapless search for respect.

Merman has also co-produced its first feature, Herself (2021) alongside Element Pictures, a female-fronted film that follows a broken family's journey to find a home set during the Irish housing crisis. Herself had its debut at Sundance in January 2020, was selected for the London Film Festival in October 2020, and was released in Irish and UK cinemas on 10 September 2021. Merman co-produces 2021's animated comedy Housebroken for Fox co-created with Clea Duvall, Jennifer Crittenden and Gabrielle Allan.

Merman has recently announced their Starz horror-comedy series Shining Vale, starring Courteney Cox, Greg Kinnear, and Mira Sorvino.

The company has won and been nominated for a whole host of awards, including film Herself longlisted for Outstanding British Film at the 2021 BAFTA Film Awards, There She Goes winning Best Returning Comedy-Drama Series at the 2020 C21 International Drama Awards and a Female Performance in a Comedy award at the 2019 BAFTA TV Awards. Frayed was nominated for five 2019 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards. Merman was nominated for Multichannel Production Company of the Year at the 2020 Broadcast Digital Awards and Production Company of the Year at the 2019 Edinburgh TV Awards.

Personal life

Horgan married businessman Jeremy Rainbird on 16 October 2005. The couple lived in London, with their two daughters. They divorced in 2019.

Her younger brother Shane is a former international rugby union player who played wing or centre for Leinster and Ireland, and is now a rugby analyst for RTÉ Sports. Her other younger brother is Mark Horgan of Second Captains and creator of acclaimed podcast Where is George Gibney?

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role Notes
2005 Imagine Me & You Beth
Valiant Charles De Girl (voice)
2010 Miss Remarkable & Her Career Miss Remarkable (voice) Short film
English dub
2011 Death of a Superhero Renata Clarke
2013 Run & Jump Tara
2015 Man Up Elaine
2018 Game Night Sarah Darcy
2019 Military Wives Lisa
How to Build a Girl Jo March
2020 Dating Amber Hannah Cotter
2021 Ladies Room Narrator Short film
Everybody's Talking About Jamie Miss Hedge
2022 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent Olivia Henson
2023 A Greyhound of a Girl Scarlett (voice)
Rally Road Racers Abby Jacks (voice)

Television

Year Title Role Notes
2002 Comedy Lab Unknown Episode: "Shoreditch Tw*t"
The State We're In Herself Series 1
2003 Monkey Dust Unknown Unknown episode
Absolute Power Theresa O'Leary Episode: "History Man"
2005 The Friday Night Project Herself 8 episodes
Broken News Katie Tate 6 episodes
2006–2007 Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive Guest Booker 12 episodes
2006–2009 Pulling Donna 13 episodes
Also co-creator, writer, and executive producer
2007 Angelo's Karen 6 episodes
Also creator and writer
Strutter Unknown Episode: "#2.7"
2009 Free Agents Helen Ryan 6 episodes
2010 The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret Alice Bell 20 episodes
Big Babies Carole (voice) 13 episodes
We Need Answers Herself Episode: "Exploring Ireland"
Stanley Park Auntie Pat Pilot
2011 Have I Got News For You Herself Episode: "#41.8"
The Borrowers Homily Clock Television film
2012 How To Be A Good Mother Herself Television special
Bad Sugar Lucy Cauldwell Pilot
2012–2014 Psychobitches Various characters 11 episodes
2012 Dead Boss Helen Stephens 6 episodes
Also co-creator, writer, and executive producer
2012 The Week Before Christmas Sharon's Mum Television film
Also director and writer
2013 Crackanory Herself Episode: "The Translator & Road to Hell"
Moving On Sarah Episode: "Back By Six"
Bad Management Eve Unaired pilot
Also co-creator, writer, and executive producer
Secrets of a Good Marriage Herself Television special
Verge of a Midlife Crisis Herself Television special
2015 Moone Boy Herself Episode: "Where the Streets Do Have Names"
2015–2019 Catastrophe Sharon Morris 24 episodes
Also co-creator, writer, and executive producer
2016 Glued None Creator, writer, and executive producer
2016–2019 Divorce None Creator, writer, and executive producer
2017–present Motherland None Co-creator, writer, and executive producer
2017 Adventure Time Minerva Campbell (voice) 4 episodes
Bojack Horseman Courtney Portnoy (voice) 4 episodes
2018 Women on the Verge Dr. Fitzgerald 6 episodes
Also co-creator, writer, and executive producer
2018–2023 Disenchantment Queen Dagmar (voice) 18 episodes
2019–2023 Bob's Burgers Kathleen (voice) 3 episodes
2019 Modern Love None Episode: "Rallying to Keep the Game Alive"
Director and writer
2019–present Frayed Norma Staircastle Episode: "#1.1"
Also executive producer
This Way Up Shona 12 episodes
Also executive producer
2020 Criminal: UK Danielle Dunne Episode: "Danielle"
2021–present HouseBroken Tabitha (voice) 30 episodes
Also executive producer
2021 Together She Television film
2022–present Shining Vale None Co-creator, writer, and executive producer
Bad Sisters Eva Garvey 10 episodes
Also co-creator, writer, and executive producer
2023–present Dreamland None Creator and executive producer
2023 Best Interests Nicci 4 episodes

Radio

Year Title Role Notes
2015 Chain Reaction Herself 2 episodes

Theatre

Year Title Role Notes
2011 Terrible Advice Delila Menier Chocolate Factory

Awards and nominations

Year Association Category Work Result Ref.
2001 BBC New Comedy Award Best Sketch Writing and Performance N/A Won
2007 BAFTA TV Award Best Situation Comedy Pulling Nominated
British Comedy Award Best Female Newcomer Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive / Pulling Nominated
2008 Best TV Comedy Actress Pulling Won
2009 Best TV Comedy Drama Pulling: Special Won
BAFTA TV Award Best Comedy Performance Pulling Nominated
2013 International 3D Award International Jury Prize The Week Before Christmas Won
2015 TV Choice Award Best Comedy Catastrophe Nominated
Edinburgh Television Award Best New Programme Nominated
IFTA Award Best Female Performance in Soap or Comedy Won
Best Writer in a Soap or Comedy Won
2016 Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series Nominated
BAFTA TV Award Best Female Comedy Performance Nominated
BAFTA TV Craft Award Best Writer: Comedy Won
IFTA Award Best Lead Actress (Television) Won
Best Writer in a Soap or Comedy Won
2018 BAFTA TV Award Best Female Comedy Performance Nominated
Best Scripted Comedy Nominated
BAFTA TV Craft Award Best Writer: Comedy Nominated
IFTA Award Best Female Performance in a Soap or Comedy Won
Best Writer in a Soap or Comedy Nominated
2019 AACTA Award Best Television Comedy Series Frayed Nominated
2020 BAFTA TV Award Best Scripted Comedy Catastrophe Nominated
2021 IFTA Award Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Film Dating Amber Won
Best Film Herself Nominated
2022 Peabody Award Entertainment Bad Sisters Won
2023 Critics' Choice Television Award Best Drama Series Bad Sisters Nominated
Best Actress in a Drama Series Nominated
Writers Guild of America Award Best Written New Series Nominated
Episodic Drama Nominated
BAFTA TV Awards Best Drama Series Won
Irish Film & Television Awards Television Drama Won
Script – Television Drama Nominated
Actress – Television Drama Won
Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series Pending
Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Pending

See also

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