Sharon Horgan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sharon Horgan
Horgan in 2018
Born	Sharon Lorencia Horgan (1970-07-13) 13 July 1970 (age 55) London, England
Citizenship	Ireland
Education	Brunel University (BA)
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 talented Irish actress, writer, director, producer, and comedian. She is well-known for creating and starring in popular comedy TV shows. These include Pulling (2006–2009), Catastrophe (2015–2019), and Bad Sisters (2022–present). She also created other successful comedy series like Divorce (2016–2019), Motherland (2016–2022), and Shining Vale (2022–2023).

Sharon Horgan has also acted in many films. Some of her movie roles were in Valiant (2005), Imagine Me & You (2005), Man Up (2015), and Game Night (2018). She also appeared in Military Wives (2019), Dating Amber (2020), and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022).

Horgan has won several awards for her work. In 2008, she won a British Comedy Award for Best TV Actress for Pulling. The final episode of Pulling also won a British Comedy Award for Best Comedy Drama. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards. In 2016, she won a BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Writer for Catastrophe, which she wrote with Rob Delaney. She has also won five Irish Film and Television Awards for her acting and writing on Catastrophe. For her role in Dating Amber, she won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2023, she received two Emmy Award nominations for Bad Sisters. This series also won her a BAFTA TV Award for Best Drama Series.

Early Life and Family

Sharon Lorencia Horgan was born in 1970 in London, England. Her mother is Irish, and her father is from New Zealand with Irish family roots. When Sharon was four years old, her family moved to Bellewstown, Ireland. Her parents ran a turkey farm there. Sharon has two brothers and two sisters.

Her younger brother, Shane Horgan, is a well-known sports expert and used to be a professional rugby player. Sharon has shared that growing up on a turkey farm made her and her siblings want to do something different with their lives. She even used her childhood experiences to create a short film called The Week Before Christmas. Sharon went to school at the Sacred Heart convent school in Drogheda.

Career Highlights

Starting Out in Comedy

When Sharon Horgan was younger, she worked many different jobs while trying to become an actress. At age 27, she started studying English and American Studies at Brunel University in London. She graduated in 2000. Around this time, she met writer Dennis Kelly. They started writing together and won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2001 for their sketch comedy.

Acting Roles

Sharon Horgan has acted in plays, TV shows, and movies. Her first TV appearances were in sketch shows like The State We're In (2002) and Monkey Dust (2003). She also helped write for Monkey Dust. Her first main acting role on TV was in the comedy Absolute Power (2003).

In 2005, she made her first big movie appearance in Imagine Me & You. She also starred in and co-wrote two seasons of the show Pulling. She played a guest booker in Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive (2006–07). For this role, she won a British Comedy Award for Best Female Newcomer in 2007.

In 2010, Horgan appeared in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, playing Alice Bell. She also played different historical women in the sketch show Psychobitches (2012–2014). She is very famous for her role in Catastrophe, which she also co-created with Rob Delaney. She played Sharon Morris, an Irishwoman in London who gets pregnant by an American man.

More recently, Horgan has appeared in Criminal: UK (2020), The Borrowers (2011), and This Way Up (2019–2021). In movies, she played Sarah Darcy in Game Night (2018) and Lisa in Military Wives (2019). She also appeared in Dating Amber (2020) and Together (2021) with James McAvoy.

Sharon Horgan has also lent her voice to animated characters. She voiced Minerva Campbell in Adventure Time and Courtney Portnoy in Bojack Horseman. She is also the voice of Queen Dagmar in Disenchantment and Kathleen in Bob's Burgers. In 2021, she voiced Tabitha, a Russian ex-show cat, in Housebroken.

In 2021, she appeared in the movie Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. In 2022, she had a supporting role in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent with Nicolas Cage.

Writing Success

Sharon Horgan's big break as a writer was with Pulling, which she co-wrote with Dennis Kelly. She played Donna, a marketing manager who cancels her wedding. The show was known for its funny and honest look at life. Pulling became very popular and won awards, even though it was cancelled after two seasons.

From 2015 to 2019, Horgan co-starred in and co-wrote the sitcom Catastrophe with American comedian Rob Delaney. They met on Twitter and decided to work together. The show was based on their own experiences. It was a huge success with critics.

Horgan also wrote Divorce (2016–2019), an American comedy series starring Sarah Jessica Parker. This show was about a woman going through a long divorce. Horgan was also an executive producer for this series. She wrote and directed an episode of Modern Love (2019). She also co-created and co-writes Motherland (2017–present), a show about the challenges of being a middle-class parent.

Horgan co-created and produced Shining Vale, a horror-comedy series for Starz. She is also working on a new comedy-drama series for Hulu, based on a short story about technology and dating. All these projects are made through her production company, Merman.

Directing Projects

In December 2012, Sharon Horgan directed her first film, The Week Before Christmas. This film was partly based on her own life and was set on a turkey farm in Ireland. She played her own mother in the film. She also directed an episode of Amazon’s Modern Love called “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive”.

TV Presenter

In 2005, Horgan co-presented the first season of The Friday Night Project, a comedy show. In 2011, she was a guest host on the news quiz show Have I Got News for You.

She has also presented documentaries for Channel 4. These include How to Be a Good Mother (2012), Secrets of a Good Marriage (2013), and On the Verge of a Midlife Crisis (2013).

Merman Production Company

In 2014, Sharon Horgan started her own production company called Merman with Clelia Mountford. They met while working on The Week Before Christmas. Merman now has offices in London, New York City, and Los Angeles.

Merman has produced many popular shows, including Divorce, Catastrophe, and Motherland. They also produced Frayed (2019–present), a show about a wealthy woman who has to return to her hometown in Australia. Other Merman productions include There She Goes (2018–present), about a girl with a learning disability, and This Way Up (2019–present), a comedy about finding happiness after a difficult time. Merman also produced Frank of Ireland (2021–present).

Merman also co-produced its first feature film, Herself (2021), which is about a family trying to find a home during the Irish housing crisis. They also co-produced the animated comedy Housebroken for Fox. Merman has won and been nominated for many awards for its work.

Personal Life

Sharon Horgan married businessman Jeremy Rainbird on 16 October 2005. They lived in London and had two daughters. They divorced in 2019.

Her younger brother, Shane Horgan, is a former international rugby player. He played for Leinster and Ireland and is now a rugby analyst. Her youngest brother, Mark Horgan, is known for creating popular podcasts.

Filmography

Film

Television

Radio

Theatre

Awards and Nominations

Sharon Horgan has received many awards and nominations for her work in comedy and drama.

See also

In Spanish: Sharon Horgan para niños