Sharon Horgan | |
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Born |
Sharon Lorencia Horgan 13 July 1970 Hackney, London, England |
Residence | Hackney, London |
Occupation | Actress, writer, comedian |
Years active | 2001–present |
Spouse(s) | Jeremy Rainbird (m. 2005) |
Children | 2 |
Relatives | Shane Horgan (brother) |
Sharon Lorencia Horgan (born 13 July 1970) is an Irish actress, writer, director, and producer, based in London. She is known for the comedy series Pulling and Catastrophe, both of which she starred in and co-wrote.
Pulling was nominated for two British Academy Television Awards, and won two British Comedy Awards. In 2016, she won the BAFTA Craft Award for Best Writer: Comedy, along with Rob Delaney, for Catastrophe. In July 2016, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.
Horgan was born in Hackney, London, to an Irish mother, Ursula (née Campbell), and a New Zealand father, John, who ran a pub. When she was four years old, Horgan's parents moved the family to Bellewstown, County Meath in Ireland, to run a turkey farm.
One of five siblings, in interviews Horgan has described her childhood as happy. She has also spoken fondly of growing up on the farm, where she helped with plucking the turkeys – “you pluck down, not up”, she once told an interviewer. Horgan later used her childhood experiences for the semi-autobiographical short film The Week Before Christmas for Sky Arts 1. Horgan went to the Sacred Heart convent school in Drogheda, which she described in an interview with The Observer in December 2012 as an unhappy experience. “I didn't enjoy it at all”, she said.
In her early twenties, Horgan moved back to London and attended various drama courses. As a young actress struggling to make ends meet she took a series of odd-jobs, including working in call centres and waitressing. For nearly two years she earned her living selling bongs in a head shop in Camden, London. At the age of 27, Horgan started a degree in English and American Studies at Brunel University in west London, graduating in 2000. Around that time, Horgan met British writer Dennis Kelly, while they were both working in youth theatre, and they started writing together, producing material they then sent to the BBC, for which they won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2001 for Sketch Writing and Performance.