Clare Higgins

Clare Higgins is an English actress born on 10 November 1955 in Bradford, England, the eldest of six children born to Paula Cecilia (née Murphy) and James Stephen Higgins. Her parents, both teachers, came from working-class Irish Catholic backgrounds. Higgins developed an interest in acting during childhood. After being expelled from a convent school, she left home at seventeen. At nineteen, she gave birth to a son, whom she gave up for adoption at the insistence of her social worker. She is a cousin of British American writer Nicola Griffith.

Higgins trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, graduating at the age of twenty-three. Her early stage work included productions at the Royal Exchange in Manchester, where she played Countess Hechingen in the British premiere of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's The Deep Man in 1979, Alexa Rollo in Marcel Achard's Rollo in 1980, Judith in the world premiere of Gerard McLarnon's Blood, Black and Gold in 1980, and Isabella in Measure for Measure in 1981. She also appeared in the premiere of David Hare's The Secret Rapture. In 2008, she played Jocasta in the National Theatre's production of Oedipus at the Olivier Theatre, opposite Ralph Fiennes in the title role. Between April and May 2009, she performed in Wallace Shawn's The Fever at the Royal Court Theatre, and from mid-May through September of that year she appeared as the Countess Rossillion in All's Well That Ends Well on the National Theatre's Olivier stage. In 2010, she played Gertrude in a production of Hamlet that was recorded as part of the National Theatre Live series.

A three-time recipient of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress, Higgins first won the honor in 1995 for her performance in Sweet Bird of Youth at the Royal National Theatre. She won the award again in 2002 for Vincent in Brixton, performed at the Royal National Theatre's Cottesloe and at Wyndham's Theatres, and a third time in 2005 for her portrayal of Hecuba in the Euripides tragedy at the Donmar Warehouse. Her performance in Vincent in Brixton also earned her the 2002 London Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress and the 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actress. The 1994 London Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress recognized her performances in both The Children's Hour and Sweet Bird of Youth.

Higgins made her Broadway debut in 2003 in Vincent in Brixton, for which she received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play and the Theatre World Award for outstanding major Broadway debut. She returned to Broadway in 2014 to play Edna in A Delicate Balance, a production that also starred Glenn Close.

On screen, Higgins is widely recognized for playing Julia Cotton in Clive Barker's Hellraiser in 1987, adapted from Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart. She reprised the role in Tony Randel's Hellbound: Hellraiser II in 1988, having requested that her character be killed off at the conclusion of that film rather than continue into a third installment. Her performance in Hellbound: Hellraiser II earned a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Additional film credits include the Scottish film Small Faces in 1996, Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream in 2007, and The Golden Compass in 2007. In 2000, she appeared as Maggie Hewitt in the television mini-series Catherine Cookson's The Secret.

Her television work spans several decades and includes a 1996 appearance in Heartbeat as escaped prisoner Maureen Bristow, and a 2012 appearance in season three of Downton Abbey as Mrs. Bartlett, a friend of Mrs. Bates who assists in securing Mr. Bates's release from prison. In November 2013, she appeared in the Doctor Who mini-episode The Night of the Doctor as Ohila, leader of the Sisterhood of Karn, alongside Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor. She returned to the role in 2015 in the episodes The Magician's Apprentice and Hell Bent. Also in 2015, she appeared in EastEnders as prosecuting lawyer Hazel Warren, and in the Father Brown episode The Daughters of Jerusalem as Dinah Fortescue. Beginning in January 2017, Higgins starred in the CBBC adaptation of Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch as Miss Ada Cackle and her wicked twin sister Agatha, a role she held through 2020.