Frances O’Connor
Jury Member
Frances O’Connor is an Australian actress, writer and director living in London. She is best known for her roles of ‘Fanny Price’ in Mansfield Park alongside Hugh Bonneville and Harold Pinter, and ‘Gwendolen Fairfax’ in The Importance of Being Earnest alongside Judi Dench and Colin Firth.
She also starred in the TV series, Madame Bovary and The Missing, both of which earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. Following her critically acclaimed film debut in Emma-Kate Croghan’s Love & Other Catastrophes and award-winning performance in Bill Bennett’s Kiss or Kill, O’Connor’s film credits include Thank God He Met Lizzie alongside Cate Blanchett, Bedazzled starring Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley and the leading role of ‘Monica Swinton’ in Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
Further film credits include her AACTA award-winning performance in Ana Kokkinos’s Blessed, The Hunter opposite Willem Defoe, Go Karts with Richard Roxburgh, Windtalkers opposite Nicolas Cage, and James Wan’s The Conjuring 2. O’Connor is most recently seen in the ten-part Sky Drama The End created by Samantha Strauss alongside Harriet Walter and in SBS anthology series Erotic Stories.
Her TV credits also include ITV’s Mr Selfridge, Troy: Fall of A City for BBC, Cleverman for ABC and Sundance, Iron Jawed Angels opposite Hillary Swank for HBO, and the US series Once Upon A Time.
Her work on stage includes the West End production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Brendan Fraser and Ned Beatty, Michael Hastings’ Tom and Viv at the Almeida theatre and the West End production of Florian Zeller’s The Truth at the Wyndham’s theatre.
Frances most recently appeared in series two of Binge’s The Twelve opposite Sam Neill and will next be seen in series 2 of Netflix’s Wednesday.
Frances’ directorial debut film Emily premiered to rave reviews at TIFF. Described as “a thrillingly unconventional watch” – EMILY is a stunning, imaginative period drama starring Emma Mackey (Sex Education), who plays Emily Brontë, the author of Wuthering Heights. Frances is a true multi-hyphenate and is already writing her next original feature.
