Spanish-Swiss actress Oona Chaplin has been in numerous motion pictures and television plays and is well-known throughout the world.
Oona, who was born in Madrid in 1986, spent the majority of her childhood there but also frequently visited the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Cuba due to her parents’ jobs.
Her father, Patricio, was a Chilean director of photography, and her mother, Geraldine, was an American actress. Shane, her mother’s first partner’s child, is her half-brother.
Relation to Charlie Chaplin
Her name makes a clear reference to her acting roots: Oona is the great-granddaughter of actor Charlie Chaplin. Some people might believe that inspired her to enter the field, but her Hollywood connections go further than that.
Eugene O’Neill, the playwright who won the 1936 Nobel Prize in literature and is best known for his work on Long Day’s Journey into Night, was her great-grandfather.
Oona O’Neill, his daughter, was an actress before she wed Charlie Chaplin, who became his fourth (and last) wife.
Geraldine, her daughter, was an actress who appeared in several films, including the classic Doctor Zhivago from 1965, which was adapted from the book by renowned Russian novelist Boris Pasternak. Geraldine gave birth to Oona Chaplin while maintaining her maiden name. In the end, perhaps the acting defect is genetic.
What does she say about Charlie Chaplin?
Oona was born roughly ten years before Charlie Chaplin passed away. Oona never had the opportunity to meet her grandfather, but she described him as a humanist who made an effort “to reach out to people and to make people laugh and love and cry, feel tenderness and feel OK about being human and feel OK about the human condition and strive toward being better human beings.” She claims that it has motivated her.
Oona suggests the 1992 Robert Downey Jr. film Chaplin as a work that “caught the soul of [her] grandfather.”
The fact that Geraldine Chaplin, Oona’s mother, portrayed Charlie Chaplin’s mother Hannah Hill in the movie lends it more authority.
Early Life
Oona made her theatrical entrance as a freshman in high school. Oona started drama school at age 15. She received a scholarship to the Gordonstoun School in Scotland, where she received the strange advice to stay away from playing in historical dramas since she “won’t be good at [them].” Her professional trajectory contradicts this criticism.
Oona performed on stage in performances of Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the school and toured the United Kingdom.
She played the lead in the latter at the renowned Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she costumed as the Tramp rather than the character Bottom.
Following her time in Scotland, Oona was admitted to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she eventually earned her degree in 2007.
Acting Career
Oona made her television debut the same year she received her degree from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In one episode of the British TV spy programme Spooks, also known as MI-5 in some countries, she played a character. It was a well-known programme that aired over the course of ten seasons and starred stars including Matthew Macfadyen, Richard Armitage, and David Oyelowo.
Oona played a little part in the 2008 movie Quantum of Solace and said she got a minute and a half of fame as a “gloried extra” in the movie. She had first applied for the role of Strawberry Fields, but Gemma Arterton was cast instead.
In the Cold War-era British TV drama The Hour, where she played the wife of well-known actor Dominic West’s character Hector Madden, Oona eventually made it to Hollywood.
Despite receiving an Emmy for “Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Dramatic Special,” the show only lasted two seasons before it was cancelled.
Game of Thrones
Oona won the breakthrough role in 2011 that catapulted her career into the public eye.
Oona was cast in the role of Talisa Maegyr, a persona who has been compared to a mediaeval Florence Nightingale. This battlefield healer, who comes from a lowly family, meets King in the North Robb Stark, falls in love, and marries the king.
In the second and third seasons of Game of Thrones, Talisa Maegyr appears in 11 episodes. She makes her debut in “Garden of Bones,” the fourth episode of season 2, and she makes her final appearance in “The Rains of Castamere,” the ninth episode of season 3.
In two subsequent episodes of the sixth season, “Blood of My Blood” and “The Broken Man,” she is addressed.
The third season episode “The Rains of Castamere” sees the death of Talisa Maegyr. When Talisa Stark was killed by a knife at the wedding reception for Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey, she was now Talisa Stark and expecting King in the North Robb’s child.
In her husband’s arms, Talisa and her unborn child pass away. The massacre that is ultimately known as the Red Wedding results in Robb’s death.
Robb brokered a previous marriage agreement between himself and one of the Frey daughters, which is what sparked the killing.
Those who haven’t seen the moment need just a brief description to be horrified, but for the actors in “The Red Wedding,” it was a tremendous burden.
Oona acknowledged that she wept uncontrollably throughout the scene. In such a state of shock, tears were inevitable, but the director even reprimanded her, telling her to “stop crying, dead people don’t cry.” You’re dead; accept that fact.
But she wasn’t the only one; according to the director, several staff members also started crying as they were filming the moment.
What did she do after Game of Thrones
Oona kept pushing forward with her career even after her Game of Thrones character died, continuing to work in both television and movies.
She appeared in 5 episodes of Dates in 2013. Dates, a romantic drama produced by Skins creator Bryan Elsley for Channel 4 that depicted a number of first dates between people who met on dating apps, was motivated by the rise in online dating.
One date is the subject of each episode. Oona co-stars with actor Will Mellor from EastEnders, Hollyoaks, and Broadchurch in the opening episode, “Mia and David.”
She appeared in The Crimson Field, a BBC drama about a fictitious field hospital in France during World War I, another period piece in 2014. Oona portrays Kitty Trevelyan, a hospital nurse who is the main character. Six episodes of the programme were produced before it was cancelled.
In the heartbreaking (aren’t they all?) Nicholas Sparks adaption The Longest Ride from 2015, Oona played a Holocaust refugee who falls in love with a local man played by Jack Huston, the grandson of another well-known Hollywood filmmaker, John Huston.
She was given the lead in Taboo, a gritty series that lived up to its name, in 2017. This BBC drama, which was created by Hollywood hottie Tom Hardy and his father, is set in the 19th century and centres on misfit James Delaney (Hardy) after the death of his father and his return to London after years away.
Oona is portrayed by Zilpha, James’ half-sister, with whom he has an abhorrent, incestuous connection. There will be other seasons of the show, albeit just one has yet to be released.
2017 Spanish-British romantic comedy-drama Anchor and Hope was her most recent film to be released. Natalia Tena, Oona’s Game of Thrones co-star and friend in real life, and her mother Geraldine also appear in the film.
The movie received mostly favourable reviews. The story revolves around a lesbian couple’s unsuccessful attempt to conceive a child with a bohemian male acquaintance.
What is Oona Chaplin doing now?
Oona hasn’t exactly left our television screens. She is thriving on the big screen, in fact. This talented actress has joined the stunningly breathtaking sequel to the 3D cult classic Avatar.
All four of the sci-fi sequels are planned to feature Oona as an actor. Varang is the name of her character, although little is known about this purportedly “powerful and dynamic primary figure.”
Oona is a TV character in Treason, a six-part spy drama created by Oscar-nominated Matt Charman of Bridge of Spies fame.
In this Netflix movie, which also stars Charlie Cox and Olga Kurylenko, an MI6-trained spy finds himself in a love triangle with both his wife (Oona) and a Russian spy.
Oona lends her voice to a three-part podcast about her grandfather that was produced by the BBC.
Oona appears in the Hollywood Outcasts episode, which examines the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s infatuation with Charlie Chaplin.
In her spare time, Oona volunteers as a trustee for The Boa Foundation, a nonprofit organisation that supports indigenous communities in Latin America and focuses on issues like land protection and cultural preservation.
Oona’s ties to the Mapuche ethnic group have brought her into contact with the Foundation and strengthened her commitment to cultural preservation, language preservation, and sovereignty.
Personal Life
Oona is trilingual, with Spanish as her first language and proficiency in both French and English. This is a result of spending time with family in Spain, Switzerland, Cuba, Chile, England, and Scotland as a child and growing up on film sets.
Due to her Spanish ancestry, Oona is also proficient in salsa and flamenco. She has studied dance since she was able to walk, but her time in Cuba solidified her ability to move to the beat.
Oona is 36 years old, unmarried, and childless as of 2022.
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