Emily Weir set for stardom after Matilda awards
IT’S not often that an actress wins an award for a professional stage debut, but young Brisbane star Emily Weir proves it can happen — she’s just won two!
IT’S not often that an actress wins an award for a professional stage debut, but young Brisbane star Emily Weir proves it can happen.
In fact, the 26-year-old won two Matilda awards last night after wowing audiences in Perth and Brisbane late last year in Tartuffe, a co-production between Queensland Theatre and Perth’s Black Swan State Theatre Company.
At last night’s Matilda Awards ceremony at Brisbane’s Powerhouse, Weir took out the Bille Brown Award for Best Emerging Artist. She also snared the Best Supporting Actress Award for Tartuffe.
Yesterday, before she knew she’d won, she was just thankful to have been nominated.
“What the hell?” she said. “It’s crazy. I still can’t believe it. It was such a great role.”
Weir played Dorine, the maid in an adaptation of French playwright Moliere’s 17th-century play, which featured dialogue in rhyming couplets. The modern version, directed by Kate Cherry, was equally poetic and had a strong cast, including Darren Gilshenan and Hugh Parker, but it was Weir, the young student in her final year at QUT, who stole the show.
“She was such a loveable character, and it was such a fun role,” Weir said.
One of her lecturers at QUT, Andrea Moor, was named Best Female Actor for her role as author Patricia Highsmith in Queensland Theatre’s production of Switzerland. Matthew Backer won Best Male Actor for his role in the same play, and Switzerland was also named Best Mainstage Production.
In fact, Queensland Theatre dominated last night, and its production of The Wider Earth won several awards.
Originally published as Emily Weir set for stardom after Matilda awards