Lara McDonnell

Lara McDonnell is an Irish actress born on November 7, 2003, in the Luttrellstown area of Castleknock, a suburb west of Dublin. The eldest of three children born to Hazel and Ciaran McDonnell, she has a younger sister named Charlotte and a younger brother named Andrew. McDonnell attended St. Brigid's National School in Castleknock and took drama classes at a parish centre near her school.

McDonnell made her acting debut in 2014 with a role in the romantic comedy-drama film Love, Rosie, in which she played an adolescent version of the title character, Rosie. The following year, she joined the West End production of Matilda the Musical, where she was one of four actresses alternating in the title role of Matilda Wormwood, a position she held from 2015 to 2016. She subsequently appeared as a young Anne Brontë in the 2016 television production To Walk Invisible and as Alannah in the 2018 film The Delinquent Season.

McDonnell took on the role of Captain Holly Short in Kenneth Branagh's 2020 Disney film Artemis Fowl, based on Eoin Colfer's novel of the same name. Her casting drew criticism from some quarters, as the character is described in the source novel as having "nut-brown skin." She collaborated with Branagh again on his 2021 film Belfast, in which she played a character named Moira. That same year, McDonnell appeared on the Irish Independent's list of actors to go stellar.

In 2022, McDonnell appeared in the Channel 5 drama The Holiday as Lucy and in the Netflix series The Last Bus. In 2023, she starred in Greatest Days, portraying a teenage Rachel. Beginning in January 2024, McDonnell made her Broadway debut playing Young Joan in Jez Butterworth's play The Hills of California.