Éanna Hardwicke scored his first lead role in Robert Higgins and Patrick McGivney’s Gaelic football drama Lakelands, which won the best Irish feature at the Galway Film Fleadh as well as the Bingham Ray New Talent award for Hardwicke and co-star Danielle Galligan, and is set for release later this year.
“It was the most involved I’ve been in a process,” says Hardwicke who, for now, is focusing on mixing independent projects with larger scale work both at home and abroad. His ethos, he says, is to seek out fresh storytelling with passion at its heart. “The ideal job is one that sweeps you away. Whether it’s film, TV or stage, you want an experience that’s going to demand something different from you.”
Hardwicke began acting in youth theatre aged 10, making his screen debut as Ciarán Hinds’s son in Conor McPherson’s The Eclipse, before studying at The Lir Academy in 2015. A week before graduation, he played The Boy opposite Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg in Lorcan Finnegan’s feature Vivarium, which shot in Belgium and Ireland, following it with the role of Rob in the BBC’s acclaimed Normal People.
Since then, Hardwicke has remained busy, with roles in RTE murder mystery Smother and Netflix’s Fate: The Winx Saga as well as forthcoming Irish feature The Sparrow. In addition, Hardwicke produced and co-wrote the Screen Ireland-funded short At Arm’s Length, which played Cork International Film Festival and Galway Film Fleadh. “Acting, storytelling, writing — I always think of them as in the same ballpark. When I’m between jobs, I have always used writing as a way of telling stories, and a way to be creative.”
More recently, Hardwicke spent three months in Bristol filming the BBC true crime drama The Sixth Commandment opposite Timothy Spall and is playing Silas in Paramount+ period drama series The Doll Factory, which is shooting in Dublin.
“I’m very inspired by what’s going on in Irish cinema at the moment and I want to be involved as much as I can,” says the Cork-born actor. “It’s in such a positive place now. More and more it’s part of that European pantheon of film. It’s testament that our stories can resonate on the other side of the world, as much as they can in Ireland.”
Contact: Susannah Norris, Susannah Norris Agency, Joe Powell, Curtis Brown
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