Zoë Wanamaker

Zoë Wanamaker stars in the new Broadway play Pictures From Home.

Olivier Award winner Zoë Wanamaker, CBE, is an English actress with numerous awards for her stage and television work. She had a nearly decade-long stint in the Royal Shakespeare Company and an extensive career on screen playing notable characters such as Susan Harper in My Family and Madam Hooch in the first Harry Potter film.

Born May 13, 1949, in New York City, Wanamaker is the daughter of Sam Wanamaker, a famous actor, director, and founder of the Globe Theatre in London. Her family moved to London when she was 3, and she eventually attended the Hornsey College of Art and the Central School of Speech and Drama to study acting. After schooling, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, remaining a member from 1976 to 1984.

Wanamaker continued to work on stage regularly through the late 1990s. During this time, she starred in productions like Once in a Lifetime and Sophocles’s Electra, which earned her Olivier Awards. Later, she played Beatrice in the National Theatre’s 2007 production of Much Ado About Nothing and Kate Keller in All My Sons at the Apollo Theatre in 2010.

She also joined several Broadway productions through the ‘80s, ‘90s, and ‘00s, including Piaf, Loot, Electra, and Awake and Sing!, all of which earned her Tony Award nominations.

Wanamaker began performing in TV series in the 1980s. Several became critical successes, such as Edge of Darkness and Prime Suspect. One of her most famous screen roles was as Susan Harper in the BBC comedy My Family, which ran from 2000 to 2011. She also performed in several films, including Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as Madam Hooch and My Week with Marilyn as Paula Strasberg. Most recently, she played Baghra in the popular Netflix series Shadow and Bone, which premiered in 2021.

In 2023, Wanamaker returned to Broadway as Jean Sultan in the original play Pictures From Home, starring alongside Nathan Lane and Danny Burstein.