Sinéad Cusack Movies
Well respected in the stage world for her frequent work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Court Theater, Irish actress Sinéad Cusack has also made quite an impression in the world of cinema. If her Shakespearian past has followed her from stage to screen with such efforts as Twelfth Night, the classically trained actress has also branched out with roles in such diverse features as Hoffman (1970), Waterland (1992), and Stealing Beauty (1996). Though Cusack spent her early years aspiring to sainthood in convent school, her carefree, attention-getting nature instead led her to the spotlight. When Cusack was 11, her father, Cyril, cast his young daughter in an Olympia Theater production of The Trial; although she wasn't thrilled with the prospect of acting early on, she kept gravitating back toward the stage. It was during her college years that Cusack became a fixture of Dublin's Abbey Theater, and a move to London found her covering for a pregnant Judi Dench in a 1975 production of London Assurance. Cusack credits her subsequent stint at the Royal Shakespeare Company with teaching her everything she knows as an actress.In 1960, Cusack made her feature debut in director Clive Donner's Alfred the Great, and though numerous roles were offered to her in the years that followed, the actress chose her film roles carefully, opting to concentrate on her stage work. Shakespearian roles in such Royal Court productions as Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice balanced numerous small-screen efforts including Notorious Woman (1974) and Quiller (1975). In 1984, Cusack cemented her reputation when she made her Broadway debut in Much Ado About Nothing, and she also made quite an impression with her concurrent performance as Roxanne in the Broadway production of Cyrano de Bergerac (the two productions played in repertory at the George Gershwin Theatre); in 1985, a performance of the latter play was taped for television broadcast. A return to London found Cusack taking the stage with her father and sisters Sorcha and Niamh for a production of, appropriately enough, The Three Sisters.
In the late 1980s and early '90s, Cusack became a more familiar face to movie lovers thanks to roles in Waterland (opposite real-life husband Jeremy Irons), Sparrow (1993), and Uncovered (1994). After once again joining husband Irons onscreen with Stealing Beauty, Cusack was directed by him in the 1997 U.K. television drama Mirad. In 2000, Cusack got laughs with her role as a meddlesome mother who enrolls in college to keep an eye on her son in My Mother Frank, and after a role in the quirky drama I Capture the Castle in 2003, she made a trip back to the small screen with the television drama Winter Solstice. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1971
- PG
In this interesting horror movie, a pleasure-seeking noblewoman uses contemporary black magic to toy with the young lovers who surround her. The story is also known as The Devil's Widow and The Ballad of Tam-Lin. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
This dark drama unfolds in an unnamed community outside of London, where a beleaguered and grief-stricken tavern owner named Jim Radford (James Booth copes with the rape and murder of his young daughter. The remainder of his family shares his distress, and in time, it begins to rip the clan apart. When the young man who is being tried for the crime is let off thanks to paltry connecting evidence, Jim grows desperate and teams up a buddy of his named Harry (Ray Barrett) whose daughter suffered from a like fate - presumably, though not definitively, at the hands of the same killer. The two hone in on the young man who they believe is responsible, kidnap him and torture him in a number of ways. Unfortunately, the youth will not talk and ends up dead. Moreover, in time it becomes apparent that this might not have been the correct individual. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide
This lackluster 1970 version of Charles Dickens' classic novel, David Copperfield (made as a film twice before) turns Dickens' picaresque tale into an extended flashback, with David Copperfield (Robin Phillips) as a young man, brooding on a deserted beach, recalling his youth. The characters are all trotted out in choppy flashbacks as David remembers his life as a young orphan, brought to London and passed around from relatives, to guardians, to boarding school. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Attenborough, Cyril Cusack, (more)
A woman who is blackmailed by her boss discovers his plans are not at all what she imagined in this low-key comedy-drama. Benjamin Hoffman (Peter Sellers) is a businessman who has eyes for a secretary working in his office, Janet Smith (Sinead Cusack). Smith is engaged to marry a man named Tom Mitchell (Jeremy Bulloch), but when Hoffman learns that Mitchell has a criminal past and is wanted by the law, he makes a startling proposal to Smith -- he'll turn her fiancé in to the police unless she agrees to spend the weekend with him. Smith sees little choice but to agree, but arrives at Hoffman's door imagining the worst. However, to her surprise she discovers Hoffman is a desperately lonely man who wants to be loved, and he demands almost nothing of her but her companionship. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Sellers, Sinéad Cusack, (more)
