Life and Career
Root was born in Chelmsford, Essex. She began her career at the Leeds Playhouse in 1983 when she played Essie in Bernard Shaw's The Devil's Disciple.
"She was a remarkably complete actress even in her early twenties, when physically she looked little more than a child. With her dark soulful eyes she could command a stage, and the Royal Shakespeare Company saw her talent very early on."
She worked regularly with the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon and London from 1983 to 1991, including playing the role of Juliet to Daniel Day-Lewis's Romeo; a very young Lady Macbeth; Cressida to Ralph Fiennes' Troilus, and Rosaline to his Berowne.
In 1995, she starred as Anne Elliot in Persuasion, co-starring Ciarán Hinds and John Woodvine. The film (made for TV, then released theatrically) was based on the novel by Jane Austen and provided Amanda Root with her first leading role in a film.
She won rave reviews in October 2008 for her portrayal of the control freak Sarah in The Old Vic's revival of Alan Ayckbourn's interlinked trilogy The Norman Conquests, directed in the round by Matthew Warchus.
Read more about this topic: Amanda Root
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or career:
“the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
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Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
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—James Merrill (b. 1926)
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)