Tara Fitzgerald (born 18 September 1967 in Cuckfield, England) is an English actress. In addition to being a renowned and critcally acclaimed theatre actress, she's a regular face in British film and television and plays the role of the fanatical Selyse Baratheon on HBO's smash hit Game of Thrones.
Associated Tropes:
- Enforced Method Acting: While playing Ophelia in Hamlet opposite Ralph Fiennes, she would take to the stage with scissors during the 'mad scene' and cut at her own hair. During one performance, she accidentally hacked away part of her ear and did the rest of the scene with blood streaming down the side of her face and the rest of the cast thinking she was taking the mad thing a bit far.
- English Rose: Played these frequently in her early, Costume Drama-filled career. Several of her characters appeared to be this at first, but swung towards Spirited Young Lady, if not outright becoming The Flapper or a Good Bad Girl.
- Ms. Fanservice: In virtually her first scene in her first acting role, in the otherwise gentle and wholesome Irish comedy Hear My Song, Tara leaps naked out of bed when her lover does everything possible to not quite exactly say "I love you". She would go on to perform nude in a great number of roles in the first decade or so of her career, quite often for no very good reason.
Theatre
- 1995 Hamlet as Ophelia
- 1999 Antigone as Antigone
- 2000 A Streetcar Named Desire as Blanche Du Bois
Film
- 1994 Sirens as Estella Campion
- 1996 Brassed Off as Gloria
- 2001: Dark Blue World as Susan
- 2014 Exodus: Gods and Kings as Miriam
- 2015 Child 44 as Inessa Nesterov
- 2019 The King as Hooper
Television Roles
- 1996 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall as Helen Graham.
- 2006 Jane Eyre as Mrs. Reed
- 2007 Waking the Dead as Dr. Eve Lockhart
- 2014 The Musketeers as Marie de Medici
- 2013-2015 Game of Thrones as Selyse Baratheon
- 2017 Strike as Tansy Bestigui
- 2020 Belgravia as Lady Corinne Grey, Countess of Templemore
- 2020 Tangled: The Series as Zhan Tiri