Over the years Limerick has been home to many great actors. In recent years, the film industry in general has been booming in Limerick with Troy Studios edging closer to its opening date.
Limerick actors have also been doing the city and county proud while working overseas and one particularly notable example of this is Ruth Negga.
Ever since Ruth Negga first appeared in RTÉ’s Love/Hate as Rosie in 2010, she’s been popping up in every other film and TV show since, such as E4’s Misfits, 12 Years a Slave and World War Z. More recently, she has become a recurring character in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D as Raina and appears in the film Warcraft directed by son of David Bowie, Duncan Jones. She’s really becoming one to watch.
Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1982 to an Ethiopian father and an Irish mother. She has spent the majority of her life here in Limerick having moved to her mother’s home country at the age of four. Ruth went on to receive her BA in Acting Studies from Trinity College, Dublin after training in the Samuel Beckett Centre. She then moved again at the age of 24, this time to London to pursue her career in acting. She’s lived there ever since but still occasionally pops over to Limerick to see her family.
Ruth Negga has recently been living it up in France where one of her films, Loving, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the real-life story of the US Supreme Court case of Loving v. Virginia which eventually led to the invalidation of the laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Ruth is already receiving Oscar buzz for her role as Mildred Loving in the film for a possible lead actress nomination.
Last year at the Academy Awards, Irish talents received a record number of nominations and judging by the way things are going already, next year will be no different. If Ruth Negga is nominated she will be the first woman from Limerick to be nominated for an Oscar, with Richard Harris being the only other native who has ever been nominated. And if she wins, she’ll be the first person from Limerick to ever win an Academy Award.
Article by: Sophie Butler
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